


The Mordor Incident (How Sam and Frodo Saved the Camp) (or, How Mordor Underestimated our Councilors)

by TheLastLonelyWriter



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Happy Ending, Little bit of slow burn, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25863340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastLonelyWriter/pseuds/TheLastLonelyWriter
Summary: “Technically,” said Frodo, ignoring the crash from upstairs, “there hasn’t yet been a summer where Gandalf wasn’t late. Pippin’s only helping keep the tradition.”Gandalf, who was watching Merry and Sam’s game with great fascination, spared a fond smile for Frodo.“I have never once in my life been late, because I am always the only one on time. Everyone else just happens to be early.”Tags will be updated as I go, next update coming soon.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Arwen Undómiel, Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee, Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf, Merry Brandybuck & Pippin Took, Rose Cotton/Diamond Took
Comments: 21
Kudos: 70





	1. Early Mornings, Pepsi, and Sappy Boyfriends

“I swear on my life, if you’re not packed in the next ten minutes we’re leaving you here, Pip!” 

Sam carefully neatened his stacks of cards while Merry waited for a response. Frodo, sitting next to Sam with his head propped up on his hands, yawned. 

“Give him a minute Merry, the sun’s only just up and it’s his first summer working,” scolded Sam.

Pippin appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in shorts and one of Merry’s shirts that he’d stolen sometime in high school. He was holding a folded sweatshirt in one hand and a family sized bag of gummy bears in the other. He was also only wearing one sock.

“I’m wounded, Merry, wounded. I thought you loved me!”

“Pip, my dearest friend, if we’re late to camp and Galadriel yells at us I’m going to run you over in Gandalf’s car.”

“You and what license?”

Pippin disappeared back into his room. Merry kept glaring up the stairs for another moment, in case he reappeared. Then he turned back to the game of Spit that he had been playing with Sam. 

“Technically,” said Frodo, ignoring the crash from upstairs, “there hasn’t yet been a summer where Gandalf wasn’t late. Pippin’s only helping keep the tradition.”

Gandalf, who was watching Merry and Sam’s game with great fascination, spared a fond smile for Frodo. 

“I have never once in my life been late, because I am always the only one on time. Everyone else just happens to be early.”

“I don’t think the other camp directors quite agree with you on that point,” said Pippin. He dropped his overstuffed duffel bag on the ground next to the kitchen table and began studying Merry and Sam’s fast moving hands. Merry would win the game if he won the round, and he was nearly there.

Just as Merry played his last card, both Pippin and Frodo slapped the pile of cards and slid it away. 

“We win!” said Pippin. 

“You little jerk!” called Merry, lunging out of his chair to tackle Pippin. He tripped over Pippin’s bag and sent both of them tumbling to the floor. Sam carefully collected the scattered cards and handed the deck over to Frodo, who tucked it away in his backpack. 

“Right then, are we all ready to go?” asked Sam.

“We’re exactly five minutes behind schedule,” announced Gandalf, pulling out his keys. “Which means that we still have time to stop for coffee and only be a half hour late. Pippin, get your bags in the trunk quickly or I’ll drive off before you’re in the car.”

“I call shotgun!” cried Pippin, grabbing his bag and racing outside.

Frodo and Sam settled into the back of the car. Frodo was waving his hands about, describing a scene from his latest story, and Sam was smiling far too brightly for someone who’d been picked up at 5:30 in the morning. 

“I’m older, so I should get shotgun,” declared Merry as he helped Pippin stuff his bag in on top of the other boys’ things. “Plus, my music taste is far superior to yours.” 

“He’s right on that point,” said Gandalf.

“It’s my first summer working as a councilor.”

“What has that got to do with anything?” 

“Merry, we let you ride in the front last year,” Sam pointed out. “And all this time you’ve spent arguing is only going to make us more late.”

Pippin whooped and climbed into the passenger seat. Much to Gandalf’s dismay, he promptly put his feet up on the dashboard and plugged his phone into the radio.

“Can’t you keep your feet down in front of the seat where they belong?”

“Oh, why absolutely not! That’s where my backpack is!”

Merry snorted as he climbed in the back seat behind Pippin. Frodo, though he was the oldest of the four councilors, was also the shortest, and therefore banished to the middle seat. Not that he minded much, because it did mean he got to lean on Sam’s shoulder. 

Sam and Frodo had started dating the year before during the infamous Camp Fire Incident (the second Camp Fire Incident, actually, but no one liked to talk about the first one), and they had been insufferably sweet ever since. They had a habit of sleeping on each other’s shoulders and it made Merry want to gag.

One trip through the Starbucks drive through later, they pulled onto the highway and set course for camp. Pippin had his window down and was blaring Queen. Sam and Frodo, content to ignore the rest of the group, were quietly discussing how well Sam’s garden was doing this summer while sharing sips of their teas. 

“The beans are just starting to come in, there’ll be lots and lots when we come back, and the tomatoes are starting to flower.”

“Oh that’s wonderful Sam, I’d never be able to keep so many plants alive.”

“That’s alright Frodo, that’s why you’ve got me.”

“Mm, thank goodness for that.”

Merry stared at them for a moment in disbelief, because how can two people be so utterly sappy good lord, before settling in to annoy Pippin. Pippin took a long, loud sip of his coffee and Merry nearly coughed from the smell of sugar.

“Dear lord Pip, how do you drink that? It’s pure sugar!”

Pippin twisted in his seat to smile brightly at Merry.

“I’m sweet and so’s my drink. Besides, I assume I’ll need the caffeine to get through camp opening. You looked positively dead on your feet last year.”

Pippin had taken advantage of being the last of their group to turn eighteen by annoying the hell out of his councilor friends the summer before. Merry hadn’t minded because he’d felt entirely superior watching Pippin have to get dropped off at their end-of-camp sleepover. The experience had almost convinced Pippin to go for his driver’s license, but he’d decided that it would be too much work.

“Oh you’ll need the caffeine alright, I’m not going to make this easy for you,” muttered Gandalf darkly.

Merry laughed at the sudden look of restrained terror on Pippin’s face. Gandalf had a reputation for being extremely bothersome when he wanted to be, even when it came to the four kids he’d helped raise. Especially when it came to them. Pippin mouthed ‘help me’ at Merry as Gandalf laughed to himself.

An hour later, a third of the way to camp and pulled over at a 7/11, Pippin wandered off quietly by himself. Merry checked to see if he’d left his phone, but no luck.

“Everyone use the bathrooms now because we won’t be stopping again!” Gandalf called. Merry ignored the warning and went to find Pippin.

“You good there Pip?” Merry asked, elbowing his friend in the side. Pippin was hidden from the rest of the store by a giant cardboard display of Pringles, contemplating a drink cooler. 

“Yeah. Do you know if Gandalf is a Coke or a Pepsi person?”

“He’s a Coke person. Why did you want to know?”

Pippin opened the cooler and pulled out a Pepsi and a Sprite, the later of which he handed to Merry. 

“If he’s going to be all ominous while we’re driving up, I’m going to be as annoying as possible, right down to the last detail,” said Pippin in a very serious tone of voice. “I take my job as the annoying one very seriously you know. Now, which candy can I be the most annoying with?”

“I vote gummy worms.”

Pippin led the way through the candy aisles, searching for the most annoying snack. He paused a moment in the gum section, and they both picked up several packs. Merry took several more than Pippin did. 

“For later,” he informed a bemused Pippin with a smile.

At the counter, Gandalf was paying for a subpar cup of coffee. The girl at the register gave him a smile as he added a giant bag of M&Ms to the purchase. 

“Taking your kids on a road trip?” she asked brightly.

Gandalf sighed. “Unfortunately.”

Just then Merry walked past, inspecting a display of vitamin waters. 

“Merry, you and Pippin prefer Skittles, right?”

“Sure do!” Merry reached for his phone and found his back pocket empty. He spun on his heel and started towards a giggling Pippin, who was standing just outside the doors. Gandalf added a bag of Skittles and the vitamin water that Merry had abandoned to the counter and the girl laughed. 

“You’re a very sweet family.”

Sam and Frodo had both gone to the bathroom, bought their drinks, and settled outside on a bench to eat a bag of marshmallows before Merry, Pippin, and Gandalf had even gotten a full step inside. Now Frodo had his notes app open, typing furiously. 

“You know, white clover means ‘think of me’. I think it’s sweet since they’re everywhere. Like, a constant little reminder that someone is there for you,” said Sam. Frodo smiled at him warmly. 

“What about that one? What does it mean?” he asked, pointing to a clump of white flowers at the edge of the highway. Sam squinted at them for a moment, then smiled. 

“Those are Angelica, or wild celery. The stand for inspiration.”

“I think they’re very pretty. What about daisies? There’s quite a few of those along the edge of the road there.”

“Daisies stand for hope.”

Frodo gave a little gasp, and quickly opened a new note. 

“I’ve got this idea for a story, and I’ve been stuck on something for weeks,” he explained, furiously writing. “I think I’ve got it now, thank you Sam.”

Sam ruffled Frodo’s hair, happy for a moment of peace. He always enjoyed watching Frodo write. Frodo often got caught up in his writing, and his tongue would poke out between his teeth. Sam thought it was adorable. 

That was the last moment of peaceful quiet the two would have all day.

Pippin left the store and came to lean against the wall next to Sam and Frodo. He giggled as he peered in the window. A moment later, Merry burst through the doors. As Pippin took off running, he dropped Merry’s phone in Sam’s lap. Frodo tucked it away in his pocket before Merry noticed. 

“Give that back Pip!”

“Why?” called Pippin, still running in circles around the parking lot. “Got any secrets on it? Oh! Have you been talking to a girl?”

Frodo switched his phone for Merry’s, entering the password and scrolling through Merry’s messages. 

“No, the only girls Merry’s been talking to are Rosie and Galadriel!” he called to Pippin.

Merry spun on his heel to face Frodo. 

“Frodo, I trusted you! I haven’t even given you my password, how did you get in?”

“Your password is just ‘Pippin’ it’s not that hard.”

Merry went bright red and Pippin laughed. Frodo sent them both one of his deceivingly innocent smiles. “Don’t be embarrassed Merry, Pippin’s is your name. You both reset it at the same time and picked the first thing that came to mind.”

Sam laughed. Merry stalked across the parking lot to their bench and snatched his phone back. Pippin strolled over to the other three and stole a marshmallow from Sam. 

“So you’re really not talking to a girl then?”

“I’ve told you a million times Pip, I’m really not talking to a girl.”

“He’d tell us if he was,” pointed out Sam. “Or Frodo would guess.” Frodo blushed and bumped his shoulder against Sam’s. Merry and Pippin both groaned. Then Pippin brightened up again.

“You’ve got someone in mind though, haven’t you?”

Merry gave Pippin a half-hearted shove. Pippin hip checked him back, and it probably would have dissolved into a full on fight had Gandalf not appeared. He had already drunk his coffee, partly because he was having fun watching Merry and Pippin argue, and partly because he was savoring the last bit of quiet, same as Frodo and Sam. 

“Alright then you fools, let’s get going.”

Merry reset his password as they pulled out onto the highway. 

“Gandalf.” Frodo whispered to Sam as Merry confirmed the password. 

Pippin waited until _Somebody To Love_ had ended to unplug his phone and reset his password. Frodo giggled and leaned in to whisper to Sam.

“Gandalf.”

Gandalf himself had taken advantage of Pippin’s distraction to switch the radio over to his classical music playlist. He only liked this playlist a little better than Pippin’s, but Pippin hated it, so he was willing to endure. Pippin, however, was not in the mood to be annoyed.

He turned in his seat to face Merry and began to dramatically make up words to the music, like he was acting in an opera. Merry enthusiastically joined in, clutching his hands to his chest dramatically. It turned out that the two were either very good at improv, or entirely on the same wavelength, because they managed to keep a consistent story line as they made up their lyrics. 

As the playlist finished, Merry and Pippin completed their three act story of a boy leaving behind his true love to sail on a ship and repay his family’s debt. Even Gandalf seemed somewhat impressed. Frodo and Sam burst into applause. 

“Fantastic,” declared Frodo. “I’ve never seen such investment in the arts before.”

“Thank you, kind sir, thank you,” said Pippin, bowing as low as he could while still buckled into his seat. Merry pushed himself between Pippin and Frodo. 

“He means me, Pip. You were only mediocre.”

“I thought Pippin was a stunning heroine, Merry,” interjected Sam. 

“Why thank you kind sir.”

Gandalf surrendered the music back to Pippin, who picked up where they’d left off in Queen. For a while, they were relatively silent. Frodo, despite the thundering of _We Are the Champions_ , had fallen asleep on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam had his phone open in his other hand, proudly scrolling through Frodo’s recent work. Merry had just realized that he’d forgotten to buy himself a water when Gandalf handed him the bag of things that he’d bought at 7/11. 

“You’re the best Gandalf,” declared Merry. “Oh, you bought Skittles too!”

“Skittles? I want some!”

Merry opened the bag and tucked it between the side of Pippin’s seat and the center console, where they could both reach it. He took a long sip of water while Pippin stared at him in disgust. 

“I bought you a Sprite and you go and drink healthy stuff.”

“That’s because Merry’s not as much of an idiot as you are,” said Sam without looking up. 

Merry and Pippin gasped. 

“Sam,” said Gandalf, fighting a laugh. “That’s going a bit far for you now isn’t it?”

Sam rolled his eyes and went back to reading. After a moment, the bag at Merry’s feet shifted and Merry caught sight of the M&Ms. 

“Oh, Sam! Gandalf bought you some stuff too!”

He held out the candy as a peace offering, but as Sam was still figuring out how to grab it without moving Frodo, Frodo’s hand shot out and snatched the bag. Pippin laughed at the look on Sam’s face. 

“Frodo! I thought you were asleep,” Merry said.

“I was, but then there was talk of M&Ms, so I woke up.” He tore open the bag and took a handful before passing it to Sam. Sam was bright red. 

“You didn’t hear me reading your writing out loud, did you?”

Frodo smiled. “I like listening to you read Sam.”

Merry plugged his ears and Pippin looked offended. 

“There are innocent children in this car you two, you can’t go around getting all mushy or we might be scarred for life!” Pippin declared.

“I think I already am,” muttered Merry. 

Frodo laughed and settled against Sam’s side again. “Can you read to me some more Sam? It’s quite helpful hearing someone read my work aloud.”

“Of course Frodo,” said Sam with a fond smile at his sleepy boyfriend. 

Pippin shook his head and turned away. Then, with a dangerous smile, he remembered his Pepsi. Making a great show of things, he pulled it out and carefully opened the can. Then he took a long, deep drink and wiped his mouth with a sigh. Merry struggled not to laugh.

Gandalf whipped the car to the outside lane and pulled over, turning down the radio so low that they could barely hear it.

“Why in the name of all that is holy are you drinking PEPSI?” he cried.

Pippin smiled innocently at him. 

“I like Pepsi.”

The three boys in the back seat hid their laughter with varying degrees of success. Gandalf turned around and glared at them all before looking back at Pippin. Pippin took another sip of his Pepsi.

“Peregrin Took, we only have a half hour to go. If I have to stop this car because of you one more time, I will turn around and drop you off back home, even if it means being five hours late to training.”

Pippin looked grave. “Five hours late? Well then, I guess I’d better behave.”

Then he took another sip. Merry lost it, doubling over in laughter. Gandalf turned around to look at him and shook his head. 

“The same goes for you Meriadoc Brandybuck. I should have known that hiring you two was a mistake.”

Merry tried his best to look sorry as Gandalf pulled back onto the highway. For a moment, there was only the very quiet sound of Queen. But Pippin couldn’t resist one more comment.

“Technically, Galadriel hired us, you just recommended us.”

Gandalf reached over and very slowly turned up the radio until it was louder than it had been before. Pippin, satisfied in his quest to be annoying, settled back in his seat. Merry took another handful of Skittles and pulled his English summer reading assignment book out of his backpack. He wasn’t going to read it, but he might as well pretend. Frodo was practically sitting on Sam in an attempt to hear his voice over _Bicycle Race_. 

The last half hour of the ride passed smoothly. By the time that Gandalf turned onto the dirt road that led into the camp, Pippin had turned the radio down so that they could all listen to Frodo’s writing. 

“... Violet smiled wistfully, and carefully tucked her last flower, a single common daisy, behind Will’s ear. Oh! That’s the part with the daisy that you wrote today!”

“Yes, it gave me the idea for this next bit.”

“Oh, keep reading Sam,” pleaded Merry.

“Yeah, we just talked about being mushy and why you shouldn’t do it!” added Pippin. 

Sam kissed the top of Frodo’s head, much to Merry and Pippin’s horror, and kept reading.

“She turned away and followed the hooded man out the door, leaving Will all alone, just like before she’d come. He reached up and touched the flower gently. All he could do now was hope.”

Merry and Pippin broke into applause. 

“Wonderful Frodo, best you’ve ever written,” sighed Pippin.

“You had better finish this one, I want to know how it ends!” said Merry. 

“At the moment,” said Frodo with a smile, “I would think you’d be more worried about rescuing your bags before Gandalf gets them all up into the trees." Sam laughed. 

Merry and Pippin noticed for the first time that not only were they parked in the counselors' parking lot, but that Gandalf had already left the car. 

At the edge of the lot, he was lifting one of Merry’s bags into the high branches of a tree. Pippin’s duffel bag was already up in another, and Merry’s other bag was waiting at the foot of a third. 

“Jerk,” muttered Pippin.


	2. Grudges, T-shirts, and a Family Friendly Betting Pool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this chapter slightly because I decided that I needed the camp to match Middle Earth geographically.

When Galadriel found them ten minutes later, Sam and Frodo had unpacked the trunk and stacked all their various bags in piles, organized by who they belonged to. They were now sitting on the edge of the trunk, hiding from the hot sun in the shade of the car. 

“I rather liked that bit at the beginning of the story, when they met. I thought it was very sweet."

“I thought you might Sam, I was thinking of you when I wrote it.”

Pippin, on the other hand, was halfway to the last of the stolen bags, struggling to reach the next branch. Merry was standing below him, next to the two rescued bags. Gandalf was a few feet away, leaning on another tree and laughing. 

“That’ll teach you to drink Pepsi in my car!”

Pippin glared at him, scrambling up another branch. He grabbed the strap of his bag and called down to Merry.

“Ready to catch?”

“Throw it down, Pip!”

Pippin yanked on the strap, and pulled the entire bag down right into his chest, knocking himself off of the branch and down to the ground. He crashed into Merry and they both went down, tumbling across the soft grass to the edge of the parking lot.

“You said you were ready to catch!” Pippin cried in mock indignation.

“I thought you meant the bag, not you!” said Merry, shoving Pippin’s bag off of his stomach. 

“Might I ask why you were throwing your bags about in the tree in the first place?”

Merry and Pippin both looked up to find Galadriel, hands on her hips, standing over them. She was in full camp director mode, with this year’s white Middle Earth Summer Camp shirt, jeans, and black Converse sneakers. Somehow she still managed to look just as intimidating as she always did. Merry and Pippin scrambled to their feet.

“Well, you see, Gandalf put them there,” said Merry.

“Yeah, we were only getting them down,” added Pippin, scuffing his foot in the dirt. 

Galadriel looked amused, but not surprised. “Gandalf?”

“Yeah!” said Merry. “He’s right over- wait.”

Merry pointed to the place that Gandalf had been moments ago, but he had disappeared. By then, Sam and Frodo had made their way over, hand in hand, to see what was going on. 

“Hello Galadriel,” said Sam, smiling brightly. 

“Hello Sam, Frodo. Merry and Pippin here tell me that Gandalf put their bags up in the trees, but I can’t seem to find Gandalf to confirm their story.”

“Oh, they’re being honest Galadriel, it was Gandalf,” said Sam earnestly.

“Yeah,” added Frodo, “he’s hiding behind the car.”

Galadriel laughed brightly. She had a very genuine laugh, and Pippin stopped feeling like a kicked puppy for having upset her. 

“Gandalf!” she called, still smiling brightly. “I’ve got four councilors over here who tell me that you’ve been up to your old tricks again!”

Gandalf stood up with surprising dignity and came around the car toward the group. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about Galadriel. Have you done something different with your hair? It looks wonderful.”

Galadriel laughed again. “My hair is in the same braid it always is and you know that Gandalf. Now, I trust I don’t have to have a talk about respecting our staff with you again?”

Pippin leaned in towards the other councilors. “Again?”

“Every year,” Frodo said with a laugh. “At least, every year that I’ve been working.”

“Ah, don’t we have a training to be getting to Galadriel? We’re about 25 minutes late now aren’t we?” stalled Gandalf.

“Is it 8:55 already?” said Galadriel, checking her watch with a start. “The others should be getting here soon, let’s get your stuff up to main base.”

Sam, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin began to collect their bags, still munching on 7/11 candy. Gandalf had started to help, but turned back to Galadriel. 

“What do you mean the others aren’t here yet?”

Galadriel threw him a winning smile as she took one of Merry’s bags over her shoulder. “I knew if I told you 8:30, you’d get here around 9, so I played it safe and told the others to arrive at 9 for a 9:30 training start.”

Pippin laughed, quickly stifling it with a hand. Gandalf frowned as he went to collect his things and lock the car. The group shouldered their bags and began the walk up to the main building, Lothlórien. Frodo struggled to balance his two bags on his back with his backpack.

“Do you want me to take one of those, Frodo? asked Sam with concern.

“No, I’m quite alright, Sam, thank you.”

Sam frowned, not wanting to be rude, but entirely in the habit of taking any heavy thing that Frodo had been assigned to carry. Galadriel noticed his discomfort and held out a hand to Frodo.

“Could you pass me one of your bags, Frodo, I’m feeling a bit off balance with only Merry’s.”

Frodo handed over the bag with a smile, and Sam beamed at Galadriel, who shot him a wink. Behind them, Pippin snorted.

“They’re teaming up to baby you, Frodo!” he called.

Sam, still moving at the exact same pace, turned to walk backwards and face Pippin. He glared hard at Pippin for a moment. 

“Do you have a problem with me taking care of my boyfriend?” he asked finally. 

Merry laughed. “Frodo, call off your boyfriend, he’s scaring Pip!”

Frodo smiled fondly at Sam. Sam ignored Pippin and Merry’s laughter in favor of talking to Galadriel, who was probably one of his favorite adults he’d ever met. 

“How have you been this year, Galadriel?” he asked politely.

“I’ve been quite well, thank you Sam. How have the two of you been?”

“We’re doing fantastic.”

“And,” interjected Frodo, “we’re thinking of moving in together. Just for the rest of the summer, to see how it goes. If it works then we’ll keep the place after we graduate.”

“Hey!” called Merry. “How come she gets to know before we do?”

“If I had to hazard a guess,” said Gandalf as he caught up to the group, “I’d say it’s probably because you are the most annoying person I’ve met in my entire life.”

“Hey!” said Pippin, offended. 

“You two are tied,” amended Gandalf. “Though we’ll see how everything stands after training.”

“Oh, don’t encourage them to be annoying during my training,” called Galadriel. “I’m dreading this enough as it is.”

They finally crested the hill on which the main building sat, and each member of the group smiled with a thought of a different summer memory. 

Galadriel remembered the first hike she’d taken to this hill, when the dream of a summer camp was just starting to form.

“Here we are, put your bags on the porch and we’ll get them moved after training!” she said, beginning the pile at one end of the porch. 

Sam was thinking of last summer, when Frodo had come running up the road to Lothlórien, train of campers in tow and wearing a flower crown on his head. He added his bags to Galadriel’s pile. Frodo followed suit, thinking fondly of the day of the (second) Camp Fire Incident, when he and Sam had eaten breakfast on the porch. 

Merry, trying his best to step on Sam’s untied shoelace, was remembering last summer, when he had first worked as a councilor, and first seen the camp before the kids arrived, quiet and serene. Pippin, trying his best to step on Merry’s trailing shoelace, was thinking of the first time he’d seen the camp, dragged along by Merry and Frodo.

Gandalf shaded his eyes and looked back the way they came. He was remembering first seeing Lothlórien fully built, the first project in preparing the hill for a summer camp. “There’s another car coming but I can’t tell who it is yet,” he declared. 

Galadriel stepped up next to him at the railing. “That’s Aragorn’s truck. I’ll go down and meet them in a minute. Now, Gandalf, could you get the meeting set up inside? We’ll be needing only twelve chairs.”

“Certainly,” said Gandalf, stepping into the Lothlórien building. 

“Who’s not coming?” asked Sam.

“Celeborn had to work today, he won’t be here until later tonight. Now, your camp shirts are labeled over there,” said Galadriel, pointing to the neatly folded shirts along the railing. “I’ll go help Aragorn, your clipboards with your assignments should be with your shirts.”

Galadriel strode back down towards the parking lot as the boys exchanged their shirts for new Middle Earth Summer Camp ones.

“What are everyone’s campsite assignments?” called out Merry.

“I’m with you, Merry! Up in Rohan,” replied Sam, checking his clipboard. 

“Oof, that’s a bit of a walk from Lothlórien,” said Pippin with a laugh. 

Frodo flipped through his clipboard with a smile. “I’m out there too, at the Fangorn site.” 

Sam smiled brightly. “Who are you working with?”

“Gimli again.”

“I can never understand how the two of you work together!” groaned Merry. “It’s unfair, every time you’re together and every time you have the most well behaved campers! And you're the closest to Lothlórien!”

“Where are you Pippin?” asked Sam, as he studiously ignored Frodo stepping on Merry’s shoelace, and Merry promptly falling over.

“I’m out at Minas Tirith.”

Merry laughed. “That’s even farther out than Rohan, Pip. You’ll never make it!” 

Pippin stuck out his tongue at Merry. Frodo ducked between them to read Pippin’s clipboard. 

“Who’s Faramir? That’s who Pippin’s with, but I’ve never heard of him.”

There was a silent round of shrugs. 

“That leaves Mirkwood and Gondor,” mused Frodo. “And Aragorn, Legolas, Arwen, and Boromir.”

“I wonder how they’re paired off,” added Sam. 

“Well Aragorn and Arwen are certainly not together,” said Merry. “Galadriel doesn’t let couples work in the same group. So it’s either Legolas or Boromir with him."

“We could check,” pointed out Pippin, reaching for Aragorn’s clipboard.

“Don’t touch their clipboards!” yelled Gandalf from inside Lothlórien. 

Pippin glared at the screen door, despite not being able to see Gandalf inside. “One of these days,” he muttered darkly, “I’m going to destroy him.”

“Now, now, Pippin, let’s remember to be kind to each other while we’re working here,” called Galadriel, as she neared Lothlórien, leading three other people. 

“Aragorn!” called Frodo brightly.

Aragorn smiled fondly at Frodo as he dropped his stuff into the growing pile. “Good to see you again Frodo! How are you and Sam doing?”

“Just splendid, Aragorn,” replied Sam. 

“Galadriel tells me you two are planning to move in together.”

“Certainly are, we’ve got a place lined up for after camp!”

“Wow, I see how it is,” griped Merry as Aragorn put on his shirt. “You’ll greet Frodo and Sam, but not Pippin and I.”

“Hello idiots,” responded Aragorn with a smile.

“Don’t worry Merry, I missed you and Pippin.”

Merry and Pippin turned to see Boromir adding his bags to the pile.

“Boromir!” shouted Merry. He and Pippin ran and jumped at Boromir, who easily caught the two smaller college students. 

“How have the two of you been?” 

“Well Pippin’s been a lazy idiot, as usual,” said Merry.

Pippin gave him a hard shove before defending himself. “I have not been a lazy idiot. To prove my point, I’d like to have you guess which of us has finished our summer work.”

Boromir laughed. “I’ll have to go with you Pippin, since you seem so proud.”

“Yeah, and you’d be right, wouldn’t he Merry?”

“I hate you. Hey Boromir, which site are you at?”

Boromir shrugged on his shirt and rifled through his clipboard. “I’m at Gondor.”

“With me!” called Aragorn from his conversation with Frodo and Sam. 

“Lucky, how come you two get to work together!” cried Merry in dismay. “Pippin and I don't! That's not fair! Galadriel, that's not fair.”

"We're out farther than you are Merry, don't complain!" called Aragorn.

Boromir laughed at Merry’s anger, and turned to draw the third man who had arrived with them into the circle. He had left his things with the others’ and had been straying just outside of their conversations. 

“Merry, Pippin, this is my brother Faramir.”

Faramir smiled the, apparently genetic, infectious smile that Boromir often wore, and waved. “Hello. I’ve heard lots about the two of you.”

Pippin smiled brightly at him. “I’m sure it was all horrible. Anyways, I’m your site partner. We’re all the way out at Minas Tirith.”

"Come get your T-shirt, we’ve all got to be matching for training, Galadriel makes a big deal out of it.” said Merry, dragging Faramir over to the clipboards.

“We have to take a picture in them and everything,” added Pippin. 

Galadriel, watching the proceedings from the porch step, smiled at Boromir. 

“I told you he’d fit right in,” said Boromir fondly. 

Galadriel took a quick head count and then turned to the road, frowning. “Aragorn,” she called over her shoulder, “have you heard from our last group?”

Aragorn checked his phone, then shook his head. “Nothing. I can call Arwen if you’d like though.”

Merry snorted. “Honestly, they’re worse than Frodo and Sam.”

“They’re only worse because they’ve been dating longer,” said Frodo indignantly. 

“Yeah, high school sweethearts,” said Pippin in disgust. “It’s icky.” 

Galadriel, ignoring the bickering college students, nodded at Aragorn. “See how far away they are at least. We’ll need to get started soon.”

Arwen picked up nearly immediately, and Aragorn put her on speaker. There was a standard chorus of 'Hello's and Pippin's loud, 'Howdy'.

“Hey, how far out from camp are you guys?” Aragorn asked.

“Oh, only 15 minutes or so, I’d guess. But we’re not moving at the moment.”

“Why’s that? There wasn't any traffic when we passed through."

“I don’t know. I was listening to music, and then suddenly we pulled over. Legolas took the keys and he’s lying down in the grass on the side of the highway. Gimli won’t tell me what happened.”

In the background, Gimli yelled, “What happened is that he’s an idiot and a jerk!”

“Yeah, so, that’s what I’ve got for you.”

“Alright love, we’ll send out a rescue car.”

“Thank you darling.”

Galadriel burst out laughing the second Arwen hung up. For a moment the others were left in various states of confusion and amusement. Then she pulled herself together. 

“Alright then, Aragorn and Gandalf, can you go get them? Thank you dears.”

As Aragorn and Gandalf disappeared down the hill, Pippin laughed.

“The first official rescue trip of the summer and it’s only just 9:30!”

“I’ll now be taking bets on how many more we’ll have to send out in the next four weeks!” announced Merry. 

Galadriel headed into Lothlórien to finish setting up. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Merry!” she called.

“I’ll bet five dollars on fifteen in total,” said Frodo. 

Merry pulled out his phone and started typing. “Any other takers?” he asked. 

“Yeah put me in for ten with seven in the first week,” said Boromir. 

“Seven? In the first week?” asked Faramir in disbelief. 

“Oh you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” laughed Pippin. “And I’ll put five on fifteen before week three, Merry.


	3. Sulking, Group Chats, and Fun Facts

By the time Aragorn called, Legolas had rolled over. He liked staring at the sky, but he preferred the stars or clouds to this clear summer blue. Also, laying on his back was not properly allowing him to convey his anger. So, he was now face down in the long grass, keys pinned underneath him in case Arwen or Gimli tried to take them.

Arwen got off the phone with Aragorn and announced to the general vicinity, “They’re sending someone to come and get us.”

“I'm not getting in a car with Gimli ever again!” Legolas called in the general direction of the car.

“I'm not switching cars just because he’s sensitive,” countered Gimli. 

Legolas didn’t dignify that with a response. He wasn’t sensitive, thank you very much. Gimli was just stubborn and stupid. It was his car anyways.

Arwen sighed. “Thirteen minutes until help arrives.”

“Twelve.”

“Eleven.”

“Ten.”

“Nine.” 

Arwen reached into the front seat and plugged in her phone. She scrolled through her music for a moment before settling on a Lindsey Sterling playlist. She turned up the volume so that she couldn’t hear Legolas and Gimli complain about her music taste.

“Eight.”

“Seven.”

She found her half eaten bag of chips in her backpack and ate a few before taking a sip of water.

“Six.”

“Five.”

She flopped down across the back seat, red flannel bunched up under her head as a pillow. 

“Four.”

“Three.”

A truck pulled over and stopped just behind their car. Arwen sat up and excitedly climbed out of the car. 

“They're here!” she called. There was no response.

She and Aragorn hugged briefly before she led him and Gandalf around to the front of the car. Aragorn restrained his laughter and Gandalf sighed. 

“Gimli, come get in the truck with Aragorn and I, training started 15 minutes ago.” Gandalf said as he walked over to Gimli’s open window.

“I will not. Make him switch cars.”

“Gimli, it's his car,” Arwen reminded him. 

“Yeah, but he’s the one being stubborn and lying in the grass.”

Aragorn, meanwhile, was crouched next to Legolas, who had yet to acknowledge his presence. 

“Legolas, you're being a baby.”

Aragorn poked Legolas in the back. He didn't move.

Gimli grumpily gathered his things and moved to Aragorn’s truck. Arwen and Gandalf switched his bags out of the trunk of the car at his demand. Aragorn stood up and poked Legolas in the side with his toe. 

“Come on now, Gimli’s switched cars. He's not being a baby.”

Arwen leaned against the car, watching Aragorn and Legolas in amusement. Gandalf got back into Aragorn’s truck and pulled out his phone. 

“Legolas, we've got to go.”

All five phones buzzed in unison. Aragorn and Arwen checked the message. It was from the newly created Middle Earth Summer Camp staff group chat.

MESC STAFF  
GALADRIEL  
I'm giving you permission to do whatever is necessary to get them to camp right now.  
GALADRIEL  
They're being babies and we need to start training.

Aragorn looked down at Legolas. “Galadriel says to do whatever is necessary to get you to training.”

Legolas still didn't answer. Aragorn sighed in mock disappointment. 

“You asked for this,” he muttered.

Then he crouched down and picked up Legolas, who dropped his keys in surprise. 

“Put me down!”

“Nope. Babies get carried to the car.”

Arwen laughed. As Aragorn approached, she opened the back door of the car for him.

“Grab the keys will you?” Aragorn asked as he dropped Legolas on the backseat.

“I'll see you at camp in 15, love.” Arwen said as Aragorn shut the door on Legolas’ complaints. 

Aragorn kissed Arwen on the cheek and climbed back into his truck, where Gimli was roaring with laughter. 

“Did you see the look on his face? Oh my god it was priceless, please do that again the next time he’s being stubborn.”

“Only if he's being melodramatic in front of the campers,” said Aragorn, pulling out onto the highway. “And Gandalf, can you tell Galadriel that we're on the way?”

Arwen pulled onto the highway just behind Aragorn. 

“He picked me up Arwen, why would he do that? He made me look like a baby in front of Gimli!”

“You already looked like a baby.”

Legolas crossed his arms and settled in to sulk until they reached camp. 

“There's still some chips back there if you're hungry,” offered Arwen, as a sign of peace.

“Thank you,” muttered Legolas. 

“Good lord, they must have really had a fight,” said Pippin. He was in his assigned seat, as far from Merry as possible, flipping through his training packet. He was also upside down, with his legs hanging off one side of the chair and his head off the other. 

“Gandalf says they're on their way,” said Galadriel absentmindedly. She was also sitting in her seat, and clicking through a set of slides on her laptop. “They'll be here in a few minutes.”

Around the room, all the phones buzzed. 

MESC STAFF  
GANDALF  
[attachment]

“I'm sorry,” laughed Frodo, “is that Aragorn carrying Legolas?”

“He looks like a startled cat,” added Boromir. 

Galadriel shook her head with a smile. “And so the dramatics begin,” she whispered to herself. Sam, sitting next to her, laughed.

“Which one of us is managing this betting pool?” called Merry, across the circle.

“I believe it's me,” answered Pippin. “Any takers for bets on the number of dramatic meltdowns Aragorn will have to solve? Councilor meltdowns only, not kids.”

“I say ten dollars for ten all told,” called Merry. Pippin took a note on his phone.

“Having never met him, I'll put ten on five from just Legolas,” said Faramir. 

“Honestly, it's like you have no respect for my authority,” sighed Galadriel. “I banned betting during camp after the Thunderstorm Boating Incident.” Boromir winced.

“Camp hasn't started yet, and we aren't trading the money until after camp,” said Merry with a smile. “So we aren’t violating your rules.” He pulled out his phone. “Also, I believe I'm running the incident betting pool.”

“Put me down for five dollars on at least three, and ten on one of them involving the kitchens,” said Aragorn, entering Lothlórien. 

“Aragorn, you're next to the projector,” Galadriel directed. “And Gimli, you're next to Pippin.”

Aragorn, Gimli, and Gandalf took their seats. Aragorn flipped through his packet for a moment before setting it aside. Gimli barely glanced at the top page. 

“Arwen and Legolas should only be a few minutes behind us,” said Aragorn. 

“Exactly two minutes behind you, it would seem,” said Pippin, pointing out the door to where the last two councilors were lugging their bags up the hill. 

“Hello everyone, sorry to have kept you waiting,” said Arwen with a smile. 

“Hello you two. Arwen, you're next to Aragorn, Legolas, you're by me,” said Galadriel without looking up. “That's everyone, and we’re only a half hour behind. Let's get started.”

“May I make an announcement?” asked Merry.

Galadriel nodded with a resigned look in her eye. Merry climbed up onto his chair and motioned for Pippin to do the same.

“For those of you who missed our earlier proclamations, Pip and I currently have open three betting pools.” 

“I'm running councilor meltdowns,” said Pippin. “With special thanks to Legolas for kicking it off with meltdown number one at 9:30 on the first day.”

Legolas stopped fixing his braids and glared at Pippin, who smiled brightly in response. 

“And I,” added Merry, “am running both rescue trips and official incidents. We will not be accepting new bets until after the meeting out of respect for Galadriel.” Galadriel didn’t look up from her computer, but she smiled faintly in response.

“And we will keep you updated on new pools and standing bets,” finished Pippin, with a deep bow. 

Merry and Pippin both sat back down. Galadriel nodded to Gandalf, who switched on the projector. A bright white slide featuring the design of that summer’s T-shirt flickered onto the screen. Pippin and Faramir looked to Galadriel eagerly, everyone else sat back with the look of a group of people who really wanted to stall but knew they wouldn’t get away with it.

“Alright, I know most of us know each other already, but let’s go around the circle and give our name, pronouns, and a fun fact about ourselves,” said Galadriel. 

Pippin groaned. “Galadriel, that is the most boring, stereotypical, and dumb thing I’ve ever heard. The statement ‘fun fact about ourselves’ makes me feel like I’m in elementary school again.”

“You’re short enough to be in elementary school, Pip!” called Merry. 

Merry was exactly one and a half inches taller than Pippin, as of last Monday morning. They measured every Monday, and he had been taller than Pippin since eighth grade. Pippin had yet to stop being mad about it. He frowned at Merry, annoyance at Galadriel momentarily forgotten.

Loudly, Galadriel pushed onwards. “I’m Galadriel, she/her, and I founded the camp. Sam, you’re next.”

“I’m Sam, he/him, and apples are my favorite food.”

“Frodo, he/him, and I’m allergic to peanuts.”

“I’m Pippin, he/him, and I think that sharing a fun fact about ourselves is a horrible way to get to know each other.”

Merry wanted to point out that technically Sam and Pippin hadn’t given their names, but he knew that he wasn’t going to either and thought better of it.

“Gimli, he/him, and Legolas is a baby.”

“That’s not a fact about yourself,” pointed out Aragorn. 

“I know that Legolas is a baby,” Gimli amended. Aragorn gave a shrug of approval.

Galadriel sighed. “Please, please, don’t do this in front of the kids? Just this once? For me?”

“Fine.”

“Legolas?”

“So long as he stops being so stubborn and idiotic.”

Galadriel sighed. “Moving on, Gandalf?”

“I’m Gandalf, he/him, and I was only late because Pippin forgot to pack the night before.”

Pippin glared at Gandalf, but Merry suddenly sat up straight. 

“We would have been late even if Pippin had been on time!” he announced. “Frodo was going to make us late because he likes tradition. It wouldn’t feel like a real start to camp for him if Gandalf wasn’t late.”

Frodo looked at Merry in disbelief. “How’d you know?”

“You just told us you’re allergic to peanuts. That’s the fun fact you always pick when you have to do this. But, you’ve got a half full bag of peanuts in your bag. You obviously don’t eat them, Sam doesn’t because then he can’t kiss you, Pippin and I would never eat something so bland, and Gandalf doesn’t eat while he’s driving. If it looked like we were on time, you were going to pretend that you’d eaten them accidentally and fake sick until we were late.”

Gandalf laughed. Frodo was bright red. Galadriel checked her watch with the look of someone who desperately wanted it to be much later in the day, when either the meeting was over or drinking alcohol was acceptable. “Aragorn, your turn.”

Aragorn controlled his laughter with some difficulty. “I’m Aragorn, he/him, and my favorite color is blue.” Pippin rolled his eyes.

“I’m Arwen, she/her, and-” Here she smiled sweetly at Aragorn. “My eyes are blue.” Aragorn blushed.

“Disgusting. I’m Merry, he/him, and I think that it’s unfair that the two sets of cousins get to work together every summer.”

“It’s because we’re the best councilor duo,” said Frodo, leaning across Pippin to high-five Gimli.

“And no one else can stand working with Legolas for four weeks,” added Arwen, smiling innocently.

“Right then, I’m Boromir, he/him, and I’m learning how to play trumpet.”

Faramir made a face. Frodo giggled. 

“I’m Faramir, he/him, and this is my first summer working here.”

“I’m Legolas, he/him, and I’m actually always paired off with Arwen because I can tell when she’s lying so that she can sneak off with her boyfriend.”

Arwen stuck out her tongue at Legolas. Galadriel ignored them and moved on to the next slide. It featured a schedule for the training, and several cartoon pictures of clocks. 

“Galadriel,” groaned Pippin, “please let someone else make the PowerPoint next year.”


	4. Sandwiches, Property Disputes, and PowerPoints

“Alright then, camp policies, check. First week schedule, check. Chore divisions, check. First aide, check.” Galadriel muttered as she ran a finger down the list she had on a sticky note. The other sticky notes fixed to the laptop screen read, ‘don’t forget that Faramir will need a full tour’, 'remember Pippin and Faramir's welcome' and ‘stop reading my notes Frodo we’ve talked about this’. 

Beside her, Sam and Frodo had scooted their chairs together so that they could hold hands and have thumb wars. 

“I win again!”

“Well it’s not my fault that I’ve got weak thumbs, Sam.”

Arwen, head on Aragorn’s shoulder, was playing with a twisted bit of metal wire while he watched her fondly. Boromir was halfway through his tenth Buzzfeed quiz of the morning, and Faramir was judging him for his answers. 

“No, pick the other one.”

“I think I know what word best describes my personality.”

“Obviously you don’t.”

Gandalf looked like he had fallen asleep with his eyes open, and Pippin and Merry were kicking a balled up piece of Pippin’s packet back and forth across the circle. 

"Right between your legs, 10 points," whispered Pippin. 

Merry sighed and leaned back in his chair to collect the ball.

“Well, it’s just coming to 12:30, and no one's listening anymore, so let’s break and eat some lunch,” announced Galadriel. 

Just as she looked up, Merry kicked the paper a little too hard, and it bounced off of Gandalf’s knee, jerking him awake. Galadriel spent a long, silent, moment looking at Merry in disappointment, then stood up and closed her laptop. 

“I’m going to call Celeborn, don’t set anything on fire,” she said as she exited Lothlórien. 

Gandalf stretched, flicked off the projector, and followed Galadriel. 

“Good news,” announced Boromir. “I’m sourdough bread.”

Aragorn looked at him in confusion. “How’d you get sourdough? I thought for sure you’d be whole grain wheat.”

“It’s because he said he only had a medium sized group of friends,” said Faramir. “He doesn’t believe me when I tell him that literally everyone likes him.”

Aragorn nodded as if that explained everything. 

“Right then, with that cleared up, let’s go eat,” said Merry, jumping to his feet. “It’s our last day of eating unhealthy food before Rosie and the other kitchen workers get here.”

“I like Rosie’s cooking,” said Sam, indignantly.

“You think that her bread is always too dry,” said Pippin.

“You like Rosie because she can talk about gardening with you,” said Frodo, looping his arm through Sam’s. “And they’re just trying to get under your skin. Now let’s go eat.” 

Aragorn and Arwen followed Sam and Frodo out onto the porch, hand in hand. Merry and Pippin stared after the couples with twin looks of confusion. 

“How can they stand being around each other for so long?” asked Merry.

“I can’t believe we’ve let our friends get so sappy,” said Pippin, at the same time. 

Suddenly, Boromir, who had dragged himself away from Buzzfeed, snuck up behind them and scooped them both up. Merry and Pippin screeched. Faramir shook his head and wandered outside to avoid Merry’s swinging legs. Legolas and Gimli ducked around the rapidly devolving wrestling match and followed suit. 

Merry and Pippin freed themselves from Boromir’s arms and immediately tripped him. All three of them ended up on the floor, chairs and papers scattered in all directions. Merry was struggling away from Boromir while Pippin hid behind the projector when Galadriel re-entered the room.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing is on fire,” pointed out Merry. 

“A small blessing. Now get outside and eat something.”

“Please tell me that you’re going to eat more than just an apple for lunch. Please,” said Frodo in concern, looking up at Sam. 

“I’ve got more, I just had the apple on top.”

“Good.”

Frodo smiled and snuggled closer to his boyfriend. Merry, Pippin, and Boromir flopped down on the porch with their backpacks. Boromir pulled out a metal food organizer, opened it, and blindly handed a stack of crackers to Faramir, who traded back a cup of berries. Gimli blinked in confusion at the practiced trade, then sat down near Sam and Frodo.

Merry pulled out a paper bag on which he had doodled a Pepsi can while procrastinating his summer work. Pippin laughed and held up his own Pepsi-can-adorned plastic sandwich bag. 

“Pippin,” said Aragorn. “Are you just eating dry cereal for lunch?”

“They’re Cocoa Krispies, thank you very much.”

“That’s still just dried cereal,” pointed out Merry. Pippin kicked at Merry’s ankle, but missed and just hit Aragorn’s backpack. It didn’t move, and Pippin’s toe really hurt. Aragorn smiled at Pippin’s horrified look.

“More like solidified sugar,” said Sam, pulling a face. Frodo giggled at Sam’s frown and poked him in the cheek. Merry gagged. 

Frodo, who had been eating an orange, opened his backpack and pulled out a sandwich. Gimli, who had just settled down on the opposite side of the porch from Legolas, pulled out his own sandwich.

“Hey Gimli!” called Frodo. “Uncle Bilbo cut a heart in my sandwich!” He proudly held up his sandwich, which Bilbo had indeed attacked with a heart shaped cookie cutter.

Gimli held up his own sandwich with a smile. “Well Uncle Thorin cut a star into mine,” he called back.

Aragorn looked like a confused puppy.

“How is your family even real, you’re all so sweet to each other. Don’t you ever argue? At all?”

“I think they do it just to spite us. Oh look, Frodo and Gimli have the best behaved campers and the sweetest family, and their sandwiches have hearts and stars cut into them,” said Merry, flopping backwards onto the porch floor. “Jerks.”

Arwen stretched out one foot to poke Merry in the side. 

“I think he’s dead,” she declared. “Frodo and Gimli killed him.”

Faramir very solemnly put two fingers to the side of Merry’s neck. “He’s still got a pulse, but he’s fading. We’ll have to act quickly if we want to keep him alive!” he announced urgently.

“Oh, well then, count me out,” said Pippin, leaning back on the porch railing. 

Legolas and Boromir were now dramatically pretending to perform CPR on Merry, which consisted mostly of poking him. Finally, Merry shook them free, and climbed up onto the wood box with his hands on his hips. 

“I live!” he yelled. Then he pointed at Frodo and Gimli. “Your evil schemes have failed you this time, boys. I live to fight sickeningly sweet bonding moments another day!”

Gandalf rounded the side of the building as Merry finished his declaration. He took one look at the councilors, sprawled across the porch and breathless with laughter, and firmly shook his head before retreating into the relative safety of Lothlórien. 

“Merry,” asked Legolas as they all sat down again, “are you eating just Pop-Tarts for lunch?”

“Sure am!”

Legolas shuddered and scooted away from where Merry was sitting. “College students scare me,” he whispered darkly. 

“Five minutes before we’re starting again!” called Galadriel from inside. 

By some miracle, the group actually did settle down and eat. Sam unwrapped a home-made loaf of pumpkin bread and passed out slices.

“I know it’s out of season, but I wanted to try this new spice mix-”

“Don’t worry love, I’ll eat your pumpkin bread whenever you feel like making it.”

“Sam, as much as I’d love a slice, I need to savor my last meal of straight Cocoa Krispies for the next week.”

Aragorn finished eating and settled behind Arwen to re-braid her hair. 

“I’m going to try a fishtail again love, I think I know what I’m doing this time.”

Legolas pulled out a notebook and sat off to the side, humming to himself as he took an occasional note. Pippin distracted Gimli with a particularly complicated joke while Merry tied Gimli’s shoelaces together. To their great disappointment, he immediately reached down and untied them again. 

“Better luck next time you two,” said Galadriel, appearing in the doorway. “We’ve got more training to get to now.”

The group filed back into Lothlórien, and took a moment to appreciate the complete mess that Boromir, Merry, and Pippin had made. After a reshuffling of chairs and collecting of lost papers, Gandalf turned the projector back on. 

“Now, I need you all to pay attention, because this is a new issue that we’re just now encountering this summer,” Galadriel said, frowning. 

Pippin had been about to reinstate his game of soccer with Merry, but the serious tone of Galadriel’s voice stopped him. Sam and Frodo sat up and Arwen lifted her head off of Aragorn’s shoulder. Boromir put away his phone and Legolas pinned his half done braid in place to finish later. It was the first time that they had all actually been listening at the same time all day.

“I’m sure that you’re all aware of our neighbor, Camp Mordor. They’ve been growing steadily in population over the last few years, and we believe that they’re preparing to try and get us shut down.”

Aragorn groaned. “They can’t, can they?”

“They haven’t got anything to pin on us!” said Merry, angrily. 

“They’re probably going to try and claim trespassing and that we’ve built on their property,” said Gandalf, wearily.

“They can’t, we’ve got the property marked off!” cried Legolas. 

“We believe,” said Galadriel, glancing at Gandalf, “that they’ve been moving our property markers. But we don’t have any evidence to call them on it.”

“What are we going to do about it?” asked Boromir.

“At the moment, we need to just see what happens. We’re looking into setting up cameras on the property border since they won’t let us bring out a surveyor. We’ve been documenting any cases of vandalism, but that’s all we can do until we get pictures or an eye-witness,” said Gandalf. He sounded surprisingly calm, but if you knew him well, you could tell that he was pissed.

“I need you all to be extra careful about the property line this year. Let’s all try to keep the kids away and be very clear about where you are,” said Galadriel. “I trust you as our councilors to stay safe, alright?”

There was a general chorus of agreement. Galadriel smiled, equal parts relieved and fond. 

“Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the rest of training. We’re going to go over medical notes now for campers, so if you’d all like to grab your clipboards, you should be taking notes.”

The group scrambled in silence for a moment, trying to shake their anger and find their scattered clipboards. Legolas left and returned with a 20 pack of pastel markers from his backpack. 

“Can I borrow a pen?” called Pippin. Merry quickly tucked his extra pen into his back pocket.

Frodo shrugged. “I don’t trust you to return them, sorry.”

Gimli spread his hands in a ‘sorry, I haven’t got one either’ gesture before snatching one from Gandalf’s bag when he wasn’t looking.

Faramir tossed Pippin a pen from across the circle. Pippin smiled and pulled out a mini Hershey’s bar that he tossed to Faramir in payment. Faramir looked at the candy, and then up at Pippin with wide eyes. 

“I love you so much right now,” he whispered.

Galadriel sat back down in her chair, ignoring the illegal pen and chocolate trade. 

“Now, we only have three kids with severe allergies, and they’re all peanuts. Two of them are with Frodo and Gimli, which works well.” 

As Galadriel started talking, the negative tension seemed to melt from the room. Frodo made a note on his clipboard while Sam doodled a field of flowers on his wrist.

“Add a bee,” Galadriel whispered while switching slides. Sam beamed and began adding bees on his forearm. Frodo watched for a moment, then drew a bee on the top of Sam’s packet. 

Arwen shifted to the floor in front of Aragorn, where she could lean back against his knees. Between notes, he continued to work on braiding her hair. It was actually starting to look like a fishtail braid, unlike his previous attempts.

Boromir pulled out his phone again. Legolas continued the braid he had been redoing. 

“Now, you can see that there’s at least one bee allergy in every group, so please be on high alert this week.”

Merry kicked the paper back across the circle to Pippin. Faramir twirled a pen across the back of his hand, which would have been impressive if he hadn’t almost dropped it. Legolas carefully highlighted each letter of the page header in rainbow colors. Gimli was now fairly confident that Gandalf had fallen asleep again, and was adding to his pile of stolen office supplies.

“Any questions for this section?” Galadriel asked.

Boromir raised his hand. 

“Yes?”

“If you had to describe me in one word, would it be brave, clever, funny, honest, loud, or shy? I didn’t know how to answer it and I really want to know what Disney Princess I’d be.”

“Alright, we’re going on our afternoon break.”


	5. Chicken Fight, Bonding Moments, and Camp Tours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold, the chapter that made me spend an hour and a half analyzing a map of Middle Earth.

“I really am looking for an answer here,” said Boromir to the rest of the group. 

“Loud. Pick loud.” said Faramir, who had slid down in his chair and covered his face with his clipboard to hide from Galadriel’s disappointed stare.

“Aragorn, what do you think?” said Boromir, ignoring his brother.

Aragorn paused braiding Arwen’s hair and looked thoughtfully at Boromir. 

“Brave,” he said at last. 

Boromir nodded and returned to his quiz. 

Gimli, having taken every pen, pencil, marker, eraser, phone charger, travel pack of tissues, and old ticket stub he could find out of Gandalf’s bag, along with several rocks, and was now carefully trying to put them back. Gandalf was snoring. 

Legolas, having carefully put away his markers, stood and stretched. “I’m going for a quick walk,” he said. “Anyone else coming?”

“We’ll go,” said Frodo, pulling Sam up. 

The three left Lothlórien and made for the line of trees that edged the path down to the lake. 

“How has your summer been?” asked Sam.

“Oh, it’s been rather boring. I always miss working at camp,” said Legolas, smiling.

“Even though Gimli’s here?” asked Frodo, innocently. 

Legolas kicked a rock farther down the path. “He’s alright. Sometimes.”

Frodo nodded understandingly. Sam gave his boyfriend a warning frown, and Frodo pouted. Sam shook his head firmly. Frodo gave him his saddest, most pathetic puppy dog eyes. Sam sighed. 

Legolas, who had been watching the exchange with confusion, shook his head. 

“I don’t understand how the two of you manage to communicate,” he said with a laugh. 

“I’m fluent in Sam’s disapproving looks.”

“That’s rather impressive, Frodo. There’s quite a variety.”

Merry and Pippin, having tired of their game of soccer, were now lying on the floor in the middle of the circle, playing table football. Faramir and Gimli had moved to sit cross legged on either side of them, forming the edges of the arena. Merry and Pippin had never actually played table football before and were learning as they went. 

“Dang it, how did I miss again?” groaned Pippin. 

“It’s all in the follow through,” said Faramir. “You’ve just got to adjust the way you’re flicking.”

Pippin glared at Faramir, who was suppressing a smile. 

“You aren’t worse than your brother,” said Pippin, “you’re just annoying in a different way.”

Oblivious to the ongoing conversation, Boromir loudly announced that he was Elsa. Faramir, Pippin, and Gimli laughed. Merry took the opportunity to score on Pippin.

“I knew you were moving your hands!” he yelled in triumph.

Pippin gave him a look of mock offense. 

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about Merry.”

“You liar.”

Merry reached out to swat at Pippin, who ducked behind Faramir. Merry scrambled to his feet and pulled Pippin up. Faramir slipped between the two of them to hide behind Gimli. Pippin shoulder checked Merry and they both tripped over Faramir’s leg. All four boys collapsed onto the floor, table football all but forgotten.

Aragorn finished tying off Arwen’s braid as the others crashed to the ground. 

“Do you think I should break them up?”

Arwen considered the dog pile in the middle of the room. 

“As one senior councilor to another, probably. But as someone who is about to have to be responsible for four weeks to her boyfriend, no. Please don’t.”

Aragorn laughed. He handed his completed braid over Arwen’s shoulder to her. 

“How’d I do this time, love?”

Arwen inspected the braid with a soft smile. 

“It’s lovely,” she said, leaning her head back to look up at Aragorn. “You’ve definitely been practicing. I might be jealous, depending on who it was.”

“It was your cousin,” said Aragorn, gently poking Arwen on the forehead. “And you knew that already.”

Arwen hummed and caught Aragorn’s hand, holding it to her cheek with a smile. 

In the background, Merry was hiding behind Boromir’s chair while Boromir argued with Faramir and Pippin. 

“He's not here, really. I'd know if he was hiding behind me,” he said, with a winning smile. 

Pippin ducked under Boromir’s arm and tackled Merry, who shrieked. Faramir moved to pick Pippin up, but was blocked by his brother, who was trying to separate the scuffling college students. Gimli had escaped from the hide and seek/wrestling game and was sitting in his chair again, sketching something in a small notebook with Gandalf’s pencil.

“We've only got one more day of being affectionate,” said Aragorn. Both he and Arwen were well practiced in ignoring the other councilors. It was a skill necessary for making it all the way to being senior councilors at MESC.

“The kids will guess within the first day, and then we won't have to worry about it, because they won't let us talk to each other without supervision,” pointed out Arwen. 

“True. The real question is, which couple are they going to guess first.”

“Oh, Sam and Frodo for sure. We're much more experienced in hiding it from campers.”

Arwen pressed a kiss to the inside of Aragorn’s palm. Pippin took a moment to point and laugh, and was promptly scooped up by Faramir, who was immediately set upon by Merry.

“I always miss the lake,” sighed Frodo. He was sitting on one of the large boulders that sat near the docks. Sam was sitting on the ground in front of him, and Frodo was playing absentmindedly with his hair. 

“It's so pretty and clear. Like a perfect mirror of the sky.”

Sam hummed in agreement. Legolas suddenly appeared at Frodo’s side, hanging upside down from a tree branch above their heads. His long hair nearly brushed the rock, even neatly braided.

“I hate to interrupt this lovely moment, but Galadriel will be starting training again soon, and we'd better at least be on our way or she'll have a thing or two to say.”

“Right, we should be heading back,” said Sam, standing up. 

“I wonder how much of a mess the others have made,” said Frodo with a laugh. 

“If it’s bad enough, Galadriel might forget to be mad at us for wandering off,” suggested Legolas.

When the three arrived back at Lothlórien, Galadriel hadn’t returned. Which was probably good, given the scene that they walked into. Pippin was hiding behind Boromir from Faramir and Merry. Merry was sitting on Faramir’s shoulders, trying to fight Boromir. 

“I’m the tallest now, and that makes me king!” Merry declared. “Hand over the traitor and you shall be spared.” 

“Don’t do it Boromir, he’s lying!” called Pippin, ducking around behind the projector.

Gimli had dragged his chair away from the battle, and now had his phone out, open to the calculator. Every few equations he made a mark next to the sketch in his notebook. He glanced up as the others entered, and then quickly flipped to a new page.

Arwen and Aragorn had switched places so that Aragorn could yell pointers to the four fighters while Arwen carefully braided a silver ribbon into his hair. 

“Faramir! Pippin’s getting away!”

“Hold still love.”

“Merry, go for the throat and eyes!”

“Idiots,” said Legolas, fondly. He pulled out his battered notebook and sat down in his seat, just out of the way of what now seemed to be a game of chicken fight, to write in it. 

Sam and Frodo took in the scene in front of them for a moment longer. Pippin, now riding on Boromir’s shoulders, was trying to fist fight Merry, but Boromir and Faramir were standing just far enough apart to prevent it. They had realized that if Galadriel returned to find them fighting, they wouldn’t hear the end of it, so they had switched to a very aggressive game of rock, paper, scissors; ignoring the two college students they were carrying. 

“Sam, we’re going to have to put up with this for the next four weeks,” said Frodo in disbelief. 

“Yes we are.”

“We don’t have to put up with it now, do we?”

“No we do not.”

Sam and Frodo turned and walked out of Lothlórien again. They settled down on the wood box on the porch, hand in hand. To their great surprise, they found that Galadriel was also sitting out on the porch, perched on the wooden railing. She smiled at them.

“Are they done fighting now?”

“I believe that everyone except Merry and Pippin have settled down,” said Sam. 

“Well, that’s the best I can hope for. I should go in soon.”

“Might I ask why you haven’t broken them up sooner?” asked Frodo. Sam elbowed him gently, because he couldn’t imagine ever questioning Galadriel. 

“Well, Frodo, they will have to be responsible once the kids show up on Monday. And they will, they’re wonderful councilors,” said Galadriel, with a fond glance at Lothlórien’s door. “But for right now they’re just having fun. And besides, Faramir is starting to get into the rhythm of the group. I didn’t want to break in. But we really do need to start our tour.”

She hopped off the railing and opened the door. 

“Hey team! Stop fighting, we’ve got a tour to get through!” 

There was a general scrambling as Merry, Boromir, Pippin, and Faramir tried to look as those they hadn’t just been fighting. The group filed out onto the porch, leaving a terrible mess of chairs, papers, and forgotten pencils inside. 

“Legolas,” said Galadriel, “please tell me you aren’t planning to wear a jean jacket all day in 70 degree heat.”

Legolas shrugged. “Alright then, I won’t.” 

Galadriel sighed. 

“Don’t worry, if he overheats we can throw him in the lake!” said Aragorn brightly. 

Galadriel laughed and Legolas glared at Aragorn. 

“Alright then, with that settled, let’s get this tour underway,” said Galadriel, starting off down the path. 

The group fell into place behind her, with Faramir at the front. He was hanging onto Galadriel’s every word with excitement. His brother, walking behind him, would occasionally lean forward to point something out. 

“This first camp site is Fangorn, it’s where Frodo and Gimli are working. It’s the closest campsite to Lothlórien.”

“It’s also the setting for the Paintball Incident from two summers ago, when we lost Legolas up a tree”

Sam and Frodo were next to Faramir, whispering together and occasionally bursting into loud laughter. They were at the front partly because Sam enjoyed listening to Galadriel talk, and partly because they weren’t trying to hide that they weren’t paying attention.

“This next campsite is Rohan, which is also the closest bathroom to the Battle Plain, for days when we do all camp activities out there,” said Galadriel, as they left the woods that surrounded Fangorn.

“Are we having a paintball game this year?” asked Frodo brightly.

Galadriel smiled. “Every year you ask that, and not once have I said no, Frodo.”

Suddenly, Merry, who had been walking with Pippin and Boromir, tackled Sam into the grass on the side of the path. Sam fought him off and Merry took off running through the Battle Plain field, Sam close on his heels. 

“Run faster, Merry! You’re losing!” called Pippin.

“Get him, Sam!” cheered Frodo.

Sam and Merry tripped over each other and disappeared in the long grass and bushes at the border of the field. Galadriel laughed.

“Alright boys, we’re only two campsites in! We can’t lose anyone in the marsh yet!”

Sam and Merry reluctantly returned to the group. Sam was grinning, and Frodo pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

“Good job, love.”

Merry was pouting. Pippin gave him a shove. 

“You can’t start a fight if you’re going to lose, Merry, or I won’t be friends with you any longer.”

“Now,” called Galadriel, “when we’re out on the Battle Plain, we need to keep an eye on our campers, because the property line runs right along the edge of the field. Faramir and Pippin, you’re working at Minas Tirith, which is the closest campsite to Mordor, so please be careful of the camp border.”

The group passed in relative peacefulness through both Gondor and Minas Tirith, then headed back towards Lothlórien. They continued past it and back towards the road and parking lots. Galadriel gestured off towards their right, down a path not far from Lothlórien.

“Down there we have the Moria cave systems.”

Legolas, walking just behind Merry, turned around to look at Aragorn and Arwen. He pointed at the two of them very seriously. 

“Don’t think I don’t know that’s where the two of you go when you leave Boromir and I with the groups,” he whispered. 

Arwen gave him an innocent smile. Aragorn had gone bright red again. Gimli laughed, and Legolas pretended not to have heard him, quickly spinning around to face the front again. The group stopped at a crossroads. Down the path in front of them were the parking lots and Ered Mithrim Road. Galadriel gestured to the path leading up into the hills on their right. 

“This path leads out to the Rivendell pavilion, and farther out it goes to the Shire and Bree fire pits.”

Sam and Frodo froze, suddenly feeling seven sets of eyes on their backs. 

Loudly, and mostly for Faramir’s benefit, Boromir announced, “That was where the Camp Fire Incident occurred.”

“The second Camp Fire Incident, actually,” said Galadriel. She turned and started down the path to the left, that led back into the woods. “Now, this way-”

“Hang on, do you keep track of the Incidents?” asked Boromir.

“I have records for the Incidents, yes.”

The group suddenly reviewed their memory of previous Incidents in horror.

“Does that mean that you know about the…” asked Boromir, gesturing vaguely with his hands.

“Yes, I do. Moving on. Up here is the Mirkwood campsite.”

Boromir turned to look at Aragorn in horror. Aragorn’s face was a near mirror of the fear on Boromir’s. Gimli laughed quietly at the two of them, and promptly tripped over a root and face planted.

“I hate hiking,” he muttered as he stood up.

“You’ve got a leaf stuck in your hair,” laughed Legolas.

Gimli reached up to where Legolas was pointing, but couldn’t locate the leaf. Legolas took a step closer and grabbed in himself, dropping it on the ground between them. Frodo nudged Sam with his elbow. Sam glared back affectionately.

“Alright then, Gimli?” asked Gandalf.

“Yeah, let’s get going.”

The group continued onward. Galadriel pointed down a short path to the left that led to a clearing. 

“Down there is the Elvenking archery range. And up here,” she said as they moved out of the trees and into a flat, rockier area with a single large building, “is our arts building, Erebor. Let’s head on inside and out of the sun for a minute.”

The building was bigger than it seemed from outside, with long work tables taking up most of the space. Shelves lined the walls. Everything was neatly stacked away in its place.

“This is the neatest I’ve ever seen this building,” said Aragorn.

“If I deep cleaned it every time I held a class, I’d never leave,” retorted Gimli. Aragorn laughed.

“Alright, everyone take a minute and drink some water, because I will be making you walk all the way back to Gondor so that we can take our picture by Belegaer Lake,” said Galadriel.

Pippin groaned. “I’ve got very short legs Galadriel, you can’t make me walk that far all over again.”

“As camp director, yes I can.”

Merry patted Pippin on the shoulder. 

“Don’t forget, this camp is a dictatorship.”


	6. A Dictatorship, Group Photos, and a Dip in the Lake

On their way past Lothlórien, Galadriel stopped and climbed up onto the porch railing, shading her eyes and looking back out at the road. She turned back to the group with a smile.

“Celeborn must've gotten off work early, he’s parking now. We'll wait here for him."

The group scattered across the porch steps and the grass around them, waiting for the last member of the camp staff to reach them. Legolas flopped down on the ground, humming under his breath. Every once and a while he would pause and hum a section over a few times, a thoughtful expression on his face. Arwen, sitting on the bottom step, was excitedly telling a story to Boromir, Merry, Sam, and Frodo. Aragorn might have looked like he was listening, but he was mostly watching her hands waving as she talked.

“...and that was when my brother decided that taking it without asking was the best course of action. For the record, it was absolutely not.”

“Oh my god he didn't,” laughed Merry.

“He did, I told you I'm the smartest in the family.”

Faramir was writing on the inside of his wrist with a pen, pausing to think every few letters. Pippin was up on the porch, digging through his backpack with a determined look. Gimli, leaning against the porch railing, was flipping back and forth between a few pages of his notebook, occasionally erasing or adding a mark. Gandalf had disappeared. 

Aragorn, Sam, and Frodo, noticing Gandalf's absence, glanced around behind the building, but couldn't see him. Aragorn pointed to a rock that had been pressed into the ground by a footstep, but it was the only indication that Gandalf had walked off that they could find. 

Galadriel was listening to Arwen’s story with a smile.

“You're forgetting the part where he wrote a note but forgot to leave it behind when he left,” she added.

“Oh my goodness, you're right.”

“He didn't come back to leave it did he?” asked Sam.

“He did! And there we all were-”

“Galadriel, I told you not to wait for me!” called Celeborn, coming up the hill.

Galadriel smiled brightly. “We can't have the staff photo without all the staff, love. Now go change or I fear Pippin will find some new way to make mischief.”

Celeborn pressed a fond kiss to Galadriel’s cheek and added his things to the pile on the end of the porch. Pippin had either given up or found what he was looking for because he zipped up his bag as Celeborn changed into his MESC shirt.

“Are we ready to go then?” asked Gandalf, appearing out of nowhere.

Galadriel, not at all surprised, nodded. “Leave all your things here, phones, bags, jackets, everything.” she said, with a hard look at Legolas. “This photo shoot has often devolved into fighting and I don't want anything lost or broken.” 

Arwen left her lilac bag on top of Aragorn’s college swim team sweatshirt. Faramir folded his flannel over the porch railing, and Gimli tossed his onto the pile of bags. After a short conversation with Galadriel that consisted entirely of glaring, Legolas folded his jacket neatly and left it on top of the wood box. 

“Right then, let’s get going,” said Celeborn, reappearing from inside Lothlórien with a camera and a tripod. “Since you’ve already waited and made us late.” The glare he directed at Galadriel held no heat. 

“We had only just come back though,” called Pippin. 

“Pip, why do you think we went to the south side of the camp first if we just have to go back there now?” said Merry, condescendingly. 

Galadriel, walking just ahead of Pippin, turned around and glared at him and Merry. 

“You made me walk the length of the camp twice so that you could take a picture with your husband?” asked Pippin angrily. 

Celeborn laughed and reached out to hold Galadriel’s hand. Boromir, walking next to Pippin, patted Pippin on the head. Merry leaned over to whisper loudly in Pippin’s ear. 

“I told you it was a dictatorship.”

At the back of the group, Faramir and Gandalf were discussing the Mordor issue. 

“Why would they try to get us shut down? The two camps have barely any overlap in demographics.”

“We think they’re trying to get cheap land. Get us out of the way and buy the already developed camp to add on to theirs.”

Faramir nodded gravely. “I’ll be sure to keep the campers away from the property border. And Pippin as well.”

In front of them, Arwen and Sam were talking brightly about window gardens. Aragorn was holding Arwen’s hand, and watching her with a faint smile while she talked about how big her newest spider plant was growing. Frodo was walking on the other side of Sam, listening only somewhat more than Aragorn was. 

“I’ve got a few herb plants with me, but I’m worried that they won’t like how shaded our cabin is,” said Arwen. “Certainly the mint and rosemary won’t.”

“Well if they really don’t like it, I can take them in. The Rohan cabins are out in the open, so they’ll get plenty of sunlight.”

“Oh, thank you Sam!”

“Hang on,” said Frodo, having just tuned back into the conversation, “how many of you brought plants with you to camp?”

Arwen and Sam both raised their hands, along with Legolas, who was walking ahead of them. 

“Why?” asked Gimli in disbelief. 

Sam smiled. “I only brought my spearmint plant, since it smells so nice. Everything else I left back home.” Merry, having only caught the last sentence, groaned. 

“Don’t tell me our cabin is going to smell like mint all camp.” Sam shrugged.

“I’ve been monitoring my herb growth this year, so I brought my rosemary, thyme, and two mint plants,” said Arwen with a smile. 

“What kinds are you growing this year?” asked Sam.

“Orange and lavender.” 

“I brought my lavender plant,” said Legolas, turning around to walk backwards, “because it smells nice. And my lithops because they’re cool.”

“Well if your lavender takes offense to the shade, I can take it in too,” said Sam. Legolas smiled brightly at him. 

“Plant people,” muttered Gimli. 

“Alright guys,” called Galadriel from the front, “shall we take our pictures in the same place as last year or pick a new setting?”

The group surveyed the grassy edge of Lake Balagaer. Last year they had taken their staff pictures between two towering trees near the shore, out of sight of the camp waterfront. It was a fantastic set of pictures, with the crowning jewel being Arwen and Legolas’ picture, wherein Legolas was hanging upside down from a tree branch while Arwen scolded him.

“Let’s take them on the dock this year!” said Boromir.

Galadriel looked at him for a moment. He smiled innocently. Frodo, Aragorn, and Merry laughed conspiratorially. Sam and Arwen shared an ‘our boyfriends are lovely idiots’ look. Pippin and Faramir glanced from face to face in confusion. 

Galadriel sighed. 

“Alright then, the dock it is.”

The group moved down to the waterfront, where Celeborn was already setting up the camera, facing the long, wooden, admittedly very picturesque dock. The faint outline of mountains across the water pierced a deep blue sky littered with fluffy clouds. At the end of the dock, one of the canoes was bobbing up and down at the end of it’s rope. 

“It’s a good day to take pictures out here,” said Aragorn brightly. Boromir smiled at him. Gandalf shook his head fondly at the two of them. 

“Gandalf, can you get everyone in order?” asked Galadriel, moving to help Celeborn with the camera settings. 

Gandalf clapped his hands. “Let’s see here, we’ll put the camp directors in the back row, and then our senior councilors. Aragorn, you go on the left,” he called, pointing. “And then Arwen and Legolas on the right.”

The three walked out to line up across the dock, followed by Boromir and Faramir at Gandalf’s direction. Gimli was directed to stand in front of Legolas. Neither seemed quite happy at the arrangement. 

“And that leaves you four. Let’s go with...Pippin, you on the left in front of Boromir, then Frodo and Sam, and then Merry on the right.”

“Thank you,” said Galadriel, as she and Gandalf took their places. Celeborn fiddled for a moment with the camera, then quickly moved back to stand next to Galadriel. 

“Remember, this first one is normal!” he called. 

The camera flashed. “Next one is however you want,” said Galadriel, sounding rather resigned. 

Boromir knelt so that Pippin could climb on his shoulders, and Merry flopped down to lie across the dock in front of the group. Frodo, leaning on Sam, gave Sam bunny ears. In the back, Gandalf had turned to face across the lake while Galadriel had picked up Celeborn. Faramir and Arwen were posed as though midway through a game of rock, paper, scissors, and Aragorn was frozen mid scream in excitement that Arwen had won that round. Legolas had propped his head up on his hands, leaning on Gimli’s head. Gimli had grabbed Legolas' braid and was holding it in front of his face like a mustache. In front of it all, Sam gave the camera an earnest look of confusion and shrugged. The camera flashed. 

“Arwen, you’re in charge of this picture,” said Gandalf as the councilors moved off the dock. 

Arwen adjusted the camera slightly as Galadriel set Celeborn back down. The three directors posed like they always did, arms around each other’s shoulders and smiling. Arwen took the picture, and handed off control of the camera to Celeborn as the senior councilors went up. 

“Sit on the end of the dock!” called Galadriel. 

Arwen took off her lilac Converse and socks, artfully arranging them in a pile as she sat down and dipped her feet into the water. Legolas, with his high top Converse, and Aragorn, with his hiking boots, took a moment longer before joining her. They all leaned back on their hands, freezing in a fake moment of casualness. Celeborn took the picture. 

Legolas shrieked as Arwen shoved him, nearly falling off the dock. 

“Not yet!” laughed Aragorn as he collected their shoes. 

“Why? It’s his fault he wasn’t ready,” said Arwen, innocently. 

“Not yet?” asked Faramir with concern. 

“Don’t worry about it,” said Boromir, patting his shoulder.

“The rest of our councilors next!” said Celeborn, smiling. 

The seven councilors filed out onto the dock. 

“I’ve got an idea,” said Aragorn. Galadriel nodded the go ahead to direct the picture. 

“Boromir, stand over there on the edge of the dock,” said Aragorn, pointing. “And then Faramir next to him, yes, grab onto his shirt. Gimli, in front of Faramir, grab Boromir’s hand. Now you four, two next to Faramir and two next to Gimli, hold hands, perfect.”

The group did as directed in confusion. Aragorn considered it for a moment, then nodded. 

“Now,” he said, “Everyone lean away from Boromir. And Boromir, pretend you’re falling off the dock.”

Boromir adopted a perfect look of terror, and Galadriel muffled her laughter with one hand. 

“Now campsite pairs!” called Gandalf as the councilors came off the dock. 

“Let’s go north to south,” said Celeborn, winking at Gandalf. Galadriel laughed.

“Legolas and Arwen, you first,” she directed. 

Now wearing their shoes again, the two walked back out onto the dock. 

“I’m sorry,” said Arwen, “ but you’re going to need to move the camera.”

Celeborn picked up the camera while Arwen and Legolas both lay down on the dock. Arwen lay with her head towards the shore, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankles. She settled her hands together on her stomach. Legolas lay with his head next to her’s, head towards the water. He bent one leg to brace his foot on the dock, and tucked one arm under his head. The other he pointed up towards the sky. 

Celeborn stood to the side of the two, holding his camera up above them. The group was momentarily impressed with how thought through the pose was, down to Arwen’s smile and Legolas’ mouth open as if he was talking. 

“I’d say it’s hard to follow that, but Gimli and I have also thought through our pose,” said Frodo. 

The two walked out onto the dock while Celeborn reattached the camera to the tripod. 

“Ready?” asked Gimli.

Frodo nodded. “Take the picture quickly!” he called.  
Gimli picked Frodo up, holding him from under the armpits, and held him out over the edge of the dock. Frodo, looking positively ridiculous, froze as if he was screaming and trying to escape. The camera flashed and Gimli quickly set Frodo down. 

Galadriel gave them a soft clap for their practice before gesturing for Sam and Merry to take their turn. 

“I think it’s highly unfair that we don’t get to think ahead because only the cousins get to work together every year,” said Merry. 

“Don’t worry,” said Gandalf brightly. “I’ve got an idea for you.”

Both Sam and Merry looked worried. Gandalf handed them both their clipboards and a long stick.

“Go to battle!”

Sam and Merry looked at each other, and then laughed. Sam lifted his ‘shield’ up and held his ‘sword’ defensively. Merry moved all the way to the other side of the dock and took a deep breath. 

“Ready?” he asked a bemused Celeborn. 

Celeborn nodded. Merry took a few steps and jumped, holding his ‘sword’ up to stab down at Sam. The two collapsed into laughter as they tumbled into each other. 

“Did you get the picture?” asked Sam.

Aragorn was leaning over Celeborn’s shoulder as he checked the picture. 

“It’s perfect guys, that’s the most teamwork I’ve ever seen you two have!” he called. 

He and Boromir walked out onto the dock. 

“Charlie’s Angels?”

“Charlie’s Angels.”

Aragorn made a finger gun with both hands and held it in close to his chest, half facing away from the camera. Boromir made one hand into a finger gun and leaned forward with one arm in front of Aragorn, as if holding him back to check around a corner. Arwen laughed as the picture was taken.

“Dorks,” she whispered. 

“Which just leaves our new councilors!” said Galadriel, with enthusiasm. The group turned to look at Pippin and Faramir, who were now both sporting black plastic mustaches, courtesy of Pippin. Merry gasped. 

“That’s why you insisted on buying those!” 

Pippin smiled as the two made their way out onto the dock. They both made exaggerated thoughtful faces and gestured with their hands as if talking to each other in mock seriousness. Celeborn took the picture.

As Pippin and Faramir moved to rejoin the group, they found their way off the dock blocked by Boromir and Aragorn, backed by the other councilors. 

“We’ve got one more tradition that we haven’t told you two about,” said Boromir. 

Pippin glared hard at Merry. “What might that be?” he asked. 

“Drop them in the lake!” shouted Arwen. She was met with several other war cries and lots of laughter as Aragorn and Boromir scooped up Pippin and Faramir. The group surged to the edge of the dock and tossed the two new councilors into the lake. They cheered as the two came up spluttering. 

Faramir and Pippin looked at each other. 

“Well, that was very mean,” said Faramir.

“Agreed.”

Then, without warning, they both jumped at the group on the dock, grabbing ankles to pull the others down too. Boromir and Aragorn went down first, dragging Arwen and Gimli with them. Those six made quick work of snatching the other councilors, though it took Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Arwen to get Legolas. 

On the shore, Celeborn packed up the camera and left it near the path, joining Gandlaf and Galadriel on the edge of the dock, watching the councilors splash about. 

“I have a feeling that they’re going to be a fantastic group this year,” said Gandalf. 

“Although, it’s not fair that they get to have all the fun,” said Galadreil. 

“What?” asked Celeborn. 

But he and Gandalf never got to ponder what she had meant, because she promptly dragged them down the dock and into the water to join the rest of the staff. 

_Yes_ , thought Galadriel as she hit the water, _they were going to be an amazing team this year_.


	7. Campsites, Food Choices, and Friendships

The group, all soaking wet but warm in the June sun, made their way back to Lothlórien. Galadriel, Celeborn, and Gandalf watched them fondly as they separated out their things to move out to their campsites. Aragorn had removed his wet shirt almost immediately and was now wearing his sweatshirt. He was also fending off hugs from various other councilors. 

“Merry, no.”

“I thought you loved me!”

“Not when you're soaking wet and- oh not you too Boromir!”

Arwen probably could have gotten him, but she was busy teasing Legolas, who was acting quite like a cat that had been forced to take a bath. 

“Oh come on, it wasn't that bad.”

“I'm never talking to you again.”

“The water was even warm!”

“I hate you.”

Sam had dug his black windbreaker out of his bag and was trying to get Frodo to put it on. 

“Sam, love, I'm fine. It's nearly 70 out, I’m not even cold.”

“But you will be, and once you're in the woods by your campsite…”

Frodo, faced with his one and only weakness of Sam’s puppy dog eyes, accepted the windbreaker. Sam pressed a kiss to his cheek as he put it on. Pippin, who had been trying to hug Aragorn, stopped to let them know exactly how disgusted he was.

“That's icky.”

“Thank you for your evaluation, Pippin,” said Frodo. “We'll be sure to practice being sweet lots more so that it stops being so icky.”

Suddenly, Aragorn shrieked. Everyone turned to see a beaming Faramir with both arms wrapped around Aragorn.

“I trusted you! I thought you were the reasonable one in your family!” 

Faramir drew back with a gasp, which Boromir echoed. 

“How dare you!” Faramir said.

“No one from the Steward family has ever been reasonable!” added Boromir. 

Gandalf laughed. Boromir and Faramir fixed him with twin glares and he held up his hands in surrender. Aragorn shouldered his backpack sullenly. 

“Alright, it’s just about 4:30, we’ll meet back at Caras Galadhon for dinner in about 45 minutes,” said Celeborn. 

The group, moving faster now that the idea of being dry had resurfaced, collected their bags in relative peace and started off down various paths to their campsites. Legolas, still angry about being dunked in the lake, set off before Arwen was ready. He had only a backpack and a relatively small bag. In his free arm, he cradled two potted plants.

Arwen gave Aragorn a kiss on the cheek and followed her cousin, wearing a backpack and carrying two bags in one hand. In the other she carried her plants in a cardboard box. 

“Hey wait up!” she called jokingly, as Legolas sped up.

As Mirkwood was the only campsite to that side of Lothlórien, the others started off together. At Fangorn, Gimli and Frodo left the group, Frodo pressing Sam’s windbreaker into his hands as they left.

“If I’m cold I’ll get my sweatshirt, love.”

“If you don’t bring one with you to dinner I’ll make you take it again.”

“I know.” 

Next, Sam and Merry peeled off. Merry had by far the most bags of any of them, though he suspected that Pippin would have more if he’d actually packed everything he needed. Sam was cradling his spearmint plant in one arm, windbreaker draped across the other.

“Which cabin shall we pick, Sammy?”

“Please do not ever call me that again. Also, that one nearest to the Battle Plain, it'll have the best sun.”

At Gondor, Aragorn dropped his ridiculously heavy bag in the middle of the campsite, waiting for Boromir. Boromir was busy giving Faramir and Pippin tips on picking cabins.

“Go in each one of them and check, think about the angle of the sun in the morning, and-”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Boromir! Come pick a cabin!”

Boromir joined Aragorn, leaving Faramir and Pippin to make their way out to Minas Tirith. By the time they got there, Faramir was carrying Pippin’s bag as well as his own. Pippin hadn't asked, but he was getting tired, and Faramir figured he still owed Pippin for the candy bar.

“So, shall we check each cabin?”

“You're brother forgets that I’ve had a cabin picked out at every camp site since I was in middle school. We want the one that backs against the rock.”

Pippin pointed to the cabin across from the trailhead, which was backed by the tall, sheer face of pale rock that rose along the back of the site. Faramir shrugged.

“Alright, if you say so.”

“I definitely say so.”

Galadriel unlocked Caras Galadhon with her ring of keys, then tucked them back into her pocket. She took down the benches at two tables and pushed them together. Then she began to clean the table tops while Celeborn carried two cloth grocery bags into the kitchen. Gandalf returned from bringing the three’s bags up to the rooms above Lothlórien. He and Galadriel joined Celeborn in the kitchen. Gandalf set about washing a set of thirteen place settings. Celeborn was laying out the various sandwich ingredients, and Galadriel began washing various fruits and vegetables in a second sink. 

They worked in comfortable silence for several minutes, easily moving around each other as they reached for bowls, knives, and dishcloths. Celeborn paused to pull out his phone and switch on a radio app, leaving it propped up on the counter. Galadriel hummed along to the song and Gandalf rolled his eyes as Celeborn joined her. 

_One day_ , they all thought, _I’m going to miss this_.

The moment was broken by the sound of the kitchen’s perpetually squeaky door. Legolas entered the kitchen, in a slightly better mood than he had been when he’d left for his campsite 40 minutes ago. He had put his jean jacket back on over his new clothes.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, thank you,” said Galadriel. “You just wait until the other councilors get here.”

Legolas nodded and sat down on the end of the counter near the door. He worked his hair out of it’s braid and ran his fingers through it a few times. Then he carefully began to pull half of it back into a new braid, holding his soaked hair tie in his mouth. 

Arwen appeared next, sporting Aragorn’s college shirt and having tied one of Legolas’ dark green flannels around her waist. She had dried her braid as much as possible without undoing it, and she was carefully smoothing back several fly-aways as she joined Legolas at the end of the counter. 

“That’s my flannel.”

“You left it on your bed, so it was free game.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Arwen on this one,” said Frodo, as he and Gimli entered the kitchen. “You really should know better than to leave your clothes where Arwen can get to them.”

Legolas didn’t dignify that with a response, instead finishing off his braid and tying it off. He ran a hand through the rest of his hair to smooth it all into place.

“We should move out to the tables and let them use the kitchen in peace,” said Arwen, gesturing to Galadriel, Celeborn and Gandalf.

The group was joined at the tables by Sam and Merry. Sam, carrying his windbreaker, smiled brightly as Frodo indicated the sweatshirt he had around his waist. 

“I told you I’d bring one, love.”

Sam sat down on the end of one long bench, with Frodo next to him. Legolas joined them. Arwen sat down across from Legolas as Boromir and Aragorn appeared. Boromir, who sat down next to Legolas at the other table, had his hair pulled back. Merry, sitting down next to him, batted at his short ponytail with a laugh.

“What happened to you?”

Boromir glared at Aragorn, who was sitting across from Frodo, next to Arwen. 

“He insisted that I need to pull my hair back until it dries”

“It’ll get tangled if you leave it down,” said Aragorn, brightly.

Gimli sat down as far from Legolas as he could manage, on the end of the last open bench. 

“Where’s our last group?” he asked.

“We’re here, don’t worry!” called Pippin, as he and Faramir entered Caras Galadhon. Pippin was riding on Faramir’s back, waving at the group wildly. Faramir set him down next to the tables.

“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for his tricks, Faramir,” said Gandalf, appearing from the kitchen.

Faramir shrugged. “It’s been a long day.”

Pippin sat down across from Gimli, smiling. 

“Yeah Gandalf, I get tired walking all over the place with my short legs.”

Gandalf sighed and sat down at the end of one table, between Pippin and Gimli, with his plate of food. Faramir sat between Gimli and Arwen, across from his brother. 

“Pippin insists that he’s dying of exhaustion,” said Faramir. “It was either carry him or listen to him complain.”

“Is that why you’re wearing pajamas, Pip?” asked Merry.

“I’m not wearing pajamas, I’m wearing a perfectly normal T-shirt and sweatpants.”

“I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation,” said Celeborn, sitting down next to Aragorn, “but you can all go get food now.”

Galadriel joined them, carrying her own plate. Merry and Pippin took off for the kitchen, although it was unclear if they were really that hungry or just trying to beat each other at something. The rest of the group followed at a slightly more dignified pace. 

They returned to their seats with a general clattering of wooden plates and silverware. Then the judging of food choices came. Faramir sat in scandalized silence and watched his brother carefully fill his sandwich with chips. 

“That’s weird.”

“You didn’t put any condiments on your sandwiches until you turned thirteen.”

Faramir sighed as Arwen tried to disguise a giggle as a cough. 

Frodo looked up to meet Aragorn’s judging stare.

“Yes?”

“Why do you do that to yourself?”

“Eat tofu? Well, as a vegetarian who’s allergic to nuts,-”

Aragorn sighed deeply and Frodo smiled at having won this argument, yet again. Sam rolled his eyes at his boyfriend’s antics. Frodo, suddenly remembering something, turned and smiled brightly at Galadriel and Celeborn.

“Thank you for getting the tofu for me!”

“We wouldn’t want to leave one of our most responsible councilors without food, now would we?” said Galadriel. 

“Hey!” said Aragorn.

“She did say one of,” pointed out Celeborn, mock glaring at Galadriel. “See what you’ve done?” he asked her. She smiled.

“Frodo!” called Gimli, from the other side of the tables. “Is that the MESC shirt from three years ago?”

Frodo looked down at his light blue shirt and then back up at Gimli. 

“Yup.”

“How does it still fit?” asked Boromir.

“The perks of not having grown since middle school are that you never have to buy new clothing,” said Merry, indicating to his shirt, from last year. Faramir hid his snort of laughter with his drink cup. 

“And,” added Pippin, “we can be carried everywhere!”

Boromir gave Faramir a stern look. 

“What?”

“Stop encouraging him!”

There was a loud sound of plastic, and Galadriel dropped a container of store-bought cookies in the middle of the tables. Celeborn began collecting empty plates.

“Finish up, take a cookie, and go finish setting up your cabins,” said Galadriel.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you might all get some sleep, so I’ll settle for just goodnight,” said Gandalf, collecting the silverware and following Celeborn into the kitchen. He was followed by a general collection of laughter and ‘goodnight’s. 

“This camp needs more plants.”

“Our campsite is literally in the woods.”

Legolas, who had been carefully refolding his clothes to put away in the set of shelves on his side of the room, paused to glare at his cousin. 

“This camp needs more gardens,” he amended.

Arwen, who had already neatly put away her clothes, made her bed, and carefully arranged her plants on the window sill above her bed, was now pinning several pictures to the intricately carved pole in the center of the room.

“You know,” said Legolas, snatching a picture from Arwen while she wasn’t looking, “if you don’t want the campers to know that you’re dating, you might want to keep pictures of the two of you out of sight.”

Arwen took the picture back. 

“Don’t worry, I have pictures of other people too.”

Legolas raised an eyebrow at her and she smiled innocently.

“I have that picture of you from when-”

“Next year I’m requesting a different partner,” muttered Legolas. 

“This stonework should be redone.”

Frodo looked up from making his bed. 

“What?” he called.

From outside, Gimli called back.

“The stonework on the base of the cabins needs to be redone. Years of kids picking at it is making it look crumbly and disgusting on the outside.”

“Ok, but is it stable?” 

“I suppose,” said Gimli, entering the cabin. He dropped his bag on his bed, and began moving his clothes to the chests that stood under the windows at the back of the room. 

On the sill of the window above his chest, Frodo had placed two picture frames. One was a picture of him and Sam, laughing as they walked towards the camera, away from Sam’s college. The other was a picture of Frodo, Bilbo, and Thorin, posed in front of a flowering cherry tree.

Gimli hadn’t brought frames for his pictures, so he tapes them to one of the poles in the corners of the room, along with several of his drawings.

“That’s a nice one of Aragorn,” said Frodo, pointing.

“I’m thinking I’ll start on that one next,” said Gimli, proudly.

“Sam, your plant is going to kill me.”

Sam, who was neatly smoothing out his sheets, didn’t look up. 

“I put it on the window farthest from your bed.”

Merry flopped down on his bed with a groan. He hadn’t actually put his things away, just shoved his bags into various drawers. Sam had taken the time to neatly fold his all away, and found a large, smooth rock to pin down his papers on top of his dresser. 

“Do you think I could climb these?” asked Merry, sitting up to inspect one of the posts. 

One post opposite the door and two on the other walls all leaned up to meet in the middle of the ceiling, making the Rohan cabins seem cozier than the more open ones at other campsites.

“Don’t get injured.”

“Here, tie that to the window frame,” said Aragorn, handing Boromir the end of a spool of string.

Boromir did as he was told. 

“Why are we doing this?” he asked, as Aragorn cut the string and tied the other end to the other window frame, cutting a diagonal line across the cabin. 

“To dry out our wet clothes,” he responded, tossing his MESC shirt over the line. 

Boromir added his recently lake washed clothes to the line, effectively making a wall between his bed in the back corner of the room and Aragorn’s near the middle. 

“I don’t see how you can sleep in a bed that doesn’t have a side against a wall,” said Boromir, ducking under the clothes.

“Technically,” said Aragorn, “the headboard is against a wall.”

Boromir rolled his eyes. 

“That doesn’t count.”

“Faramir, I can’t reach the bed to put my sheets on,” whined Pippin. 

Faramir, bed already made, was standing under the loft bed and putting his clothes into the shelves there. He looked up at Pippin, who was standing in the middle of the room with his best puppy dog eyes on.

“What would you like me to do about that?”

“Can you put them on for me?”

“What’ll you pay me?”

Pippin sighed. 

“Would you like another candy bar?”

Faramir smiled brightly.

“Give me the sheets then, Pippin.”

Back at Lothlórien, Galadriel, Celeborn, and Gandalf were sitting on the floor in the middle of the empty bedroom, finalizing the schedules for the first week. 

The upstairs of Lothlórien had a large office that they easily could have done their work at, but since none of them used the third bedroom, they much preferred working in there. Since the councilors often came looking for them in the office, it felt more private and less formal to work here.

“If we run that program on Thursday, then we can have Legolas back with his group on the days that Arwen needs to cover for Gimli,” said Galadriel, marking something on her paper.

“And that leaves everyone enough time to get ready for the Wednesday all camp things,” added Gandalf, pointing to another time block on the schedule.

“You only want those to overlap because you bet on them getting together this summer,” muttered Celeborn.

Gandalf smiled at him. 

“Don’t be a sore loser, we all knew that last summer was too soon.”


	8. Alarms, Breakfast, and Teasing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Day two? It can't be, we're only on chapter 8!

At 6:00 in the morning the next day, Faramir and Pippin were woken by a loud noise. Faramir sat bolt upright and slammed his head into the ceiling full force. He glanced at Pippin to see if he had noticed, but Pippin was checking his phone.

“So, my alarm isn’t set to go off for another half hour…” said Pippin.

“What time is it?”

“Six in the morning.”

“Mine’s set for 6:30 as well.”

“Which begs the question, what in all heck woke us up?”

Faramir climbed down out of his bed, head still throbbing. He winced as he stepped down onto the cold floor of the cabin. From what he could see through the windows and screen door, nothing was amiss outside. Just then, the noise came again. 

Pippin, paused halfway down the ladder from his bed, listened intently.

“Is that someone yelling?”

“I think,” said Faramir, beginning to gather clothes for the day, “that it might be my brother.”

Pippin nodded as if that explained everything. 

“Well, let’s get ready for the day and then we’ll go see what’s happened.”

Faramir yawned. 

“If we’re quick they might both be alive when we get there.”

At 6:00 in the morning, Aragorn and Boromir were woken by the blaring sound of Boromir’s phone playing Here Comes the Sun. Boromir’s phone was plugged in at the only outlet, and sitting on the windowsill across from the foot of his bed. It was also only two feet away from Aragorn’s head. 

Aragorn, to his credit, did not scream. He did, however, fall out of bed. 

“What the heck Boromir!” he yelled.

“Sorry, I forgot that my alarm was set for six.”

“Why is your alarm Here Comes the Sun?”

“I think it’s a lovely way to start a new day. Can you stop screaming?”

“No! I’m in shock! I might be injured!”

“Drama queen.”

“I am a drama king, thank you!”

Boromir turned off his phone and brushed aside the now dry clothes still hanging across the middle of the cabin. Aragorn, wrapped in his blanket, was sitting on the floor. 

“Are you done?”

“Yes, thanks for asking.”

Sam and Merry had agreed to set alarms five minutes apart, alternating between phones, so that they’d be sure to be fully awake by 6:45. At 6:30, Sam’s phone played it’s cheerful default sound. At 6:35, Merry’s played a recording of Pippin yelling, ‘get up idiot’. 

Sam, fully awoken by the sound of yelling, turned off his remaining alarm. He made his bed and got into his clothes for the day before Merry managed to stop giggling about his alarm.

“Are you done yet?” asked Sam, hands on his hips.

Merry broke into another round of giggles. 

“Yes mom.”

Frodo and Gimli had set their alarms to go off at the exact same time, both playing the same default chime. Somehow, when they went off at 6:30, neither Frodo nor Gimli woke up. Fortunately, a combination of their natural sleep schedules and the incredibly loud birds saw Frodo awake by 6:40.

Frodo rolled over, stretched, and realized that their alarms were still going off. 

“Gimli,” he called.

Gimli didn’t wake up.

“Gimli!”

Sighing, Frodo got out of bed. He turned off his alarm, found Gimli’s phone under several sheets of paper on the window sill, and turned that alarm off too. Then he stood for a moment in the sudden silence. In the distance, he could faintly hear what sounded like Pippin yelling. 

He contemplated how to wake up Gimli, and decided that classic was always best. He pulled Gimli’s blanket away with a cheerful, “Good morning we both missed our alarms going off and now it’s time to get up!” Gimli groaned. 

“Give me my blankets back.”

“You can have them back once you’ve gotten dressed.”

“You’re almost as bad as Sam.”

“Why thank you, I try my best.”

When Arwen’s single 6:30 alarm went off, playing a generic beeping noise, she and Legolas were both fully dressed, beds made, and sitting at a table in Caras Galadhon. She pulled out her phone, turned off the alarm, and laughed.

“Legolas, it’s time to get up!” she said brightly.

Legolas, who was sitting on the table, looked over at her in confusion. Realization dawned on his face, and he laughed too.

“I wonder how everyone else did getting up,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure that they did,” said Galadriel. She and Celeborn were sitting at the end of one of the tables, a mess of spreadsheets with bright blocks of color spread all around them.

Gandalf had last been seen leaving Lothlórien that morning. Arwen and Legolas had been sent out to find him when they’d first arrived at Caras Galadhon, but they had soon returned empty handed. Galadriel had simply shrugged and declared him lost.

Faramir and Pippin came in, tripping over themselves in laughter. Boromir and Aragorn weren’t far behind them, but they looked significantly less pleased with the morning. 

“Guess what!” said Pippin, between laughs.

“What?” asked Arwen.

“Aragorn woke us up by screaming!” said Faramir brightly.

Legolas tried very hard to hide his laugh, but made the mistake of making eye contact with Faramir and lost it. Faramir and Pippin sat down across from Legolas, laughing at Boromir, who was grumpily sitting as far from Aragorn as possible. 

“I still don’t see how this is my fault,” he muttered. 

Aragorn, sitting between Galadriel and Arwen, glared down the tables at Boromir. Arwen suppressed a giggle and kissed him on the forehead. 

“Anyone like a piece of toast?” she asked the table as she stood up. 

“There’s also cereal. And eggs, if anyone is inclined to do some cooking,” added Celeborn, absentmindedly

“I’ll just take cereal please, Arwen,” said Frodo, sitting down at the table. 

There was a sudden clamoring of food orders, topped off by Merry bursting through the door with Sam in tow, yelling “I want cereal!”

“Legolas,” said Arwen, “come help me with food.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Because you’ve already eaten. Now come on.”

Legolas sighed and followed Arwen into the kitchen. Arwen set about starting several pieces of toast and gestured vaguely for Legolas to start on the eggs.

“We made our own food, why can’t they?”

“I seem to distinctly remember you not helping at all.”

“Also,” said Arwen, pointing at Legolas with a spatula before handing it over, “I gave you and Gimli about five seconds before you started fighting over something and I can’t deal with that again.”

From outside the kitchen came a loud shriek and then the sound of two people falling down. Faramir, who had been animatedly recounting the story of waking up to hearing Boromir and Aragorn yelling, had been knocked off the bench by Aragorn, in an attempt to shut him to shut up.

“We should move on to a new topic of conversation now,” announced Boromir.

“Please do,” said Aragorn.

“Well here,” said Galadriel, shoving several sheets of paper into the middle of the group, “Check over these and see if everything works.”

The group settled down for the time being, leaning over the camp schedule for the first week. Sam ran a finger along the path of his group, mumbling under his breath. Aragorn scanned over it quickly, then sat back again. 

“Capture the flag for two hours?” asked Faramir.

“The game tends to get a little, shall we say, complicated,” said Aragorn. 

“Don’t act like it’s not your fault,” said Arwen, returning from the kitchen. She and Legolas handed out plates and bowls, then sat down to look over the schedule. 

“Just because I’m better at defending our flag than Boromir is doesn’t mean-”

“You’re a cheater, that’s what you are,” said Boromir.

“You’re just jealous because my team has won for five years straight now.”

Aragorn leaned around Arwen to fist bump Gimli, who was still studying the schedule. 

“Galadriel,” said Frodo, “do we get to have a councilor fire pit tonight?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to stop you.”

The table cheered. Pippin looked incredibly excited, but Faramir looked somewhat terrified. Merry patted him on the shoulder. 

“Don’t worry, we don’t throw new councilors into the fire.”

“You had better not be throwing anyone into the fire,” said a new voice from the door. Everyone turned to look, and found that Gandalf had returned with another member of the MESC staff. 

“Halbarad!” said Aragorn.

The camp medic dropped his bags on the floor by the door and joined the group at the table. He and Aragorn shared a hug, and Arwen batted at his shoulder.

"This one's mine, get your own." 

“Halbarad, Faramir,” said Gandalf, gesturing at the new councilor. 

“Hello,” said Faramir, smiling. 

Halbarad smiled back at him, but gave Pippin a severe once over. 

“I hope you’re more careful as a councilor than you were as a camper,” he said.

Pippin laughed. “I’ve gotten better.”

Yet another person spoke up from the door, startling the whole group.

“Given how much time you had logged in the medical logs last year, I’d say that you’re either lying or you used to spend the whole summer injured.”

“Hello Rosie!” said Pippin, undeterred. 

“Hello, you disaster,” Rosie said, joining the group. “Welcome to the staff.”

“Now that you’ve had plenty of time to look over the schedule,” said Galadriel, “I need this room to start our staff meeting. You councilors go start setting up your campsites.”

The group let out a near collective sigh and began to collect their dirty dishes. 

“We’re meeting back here around noon!” Celeborn called after them. 

In front of Lothlórien, the group stalled. 

“So,” said Arwen.

“It’s almost 7:30 now,” said Legolas, checking his watch.

“If we’re all back here by 11, we’ll have time to discuss the annual prank war,” concluded Boromir.

“Does that give everyone enough time?” asked Sam, looking around the group.

“We’ll certainly be ready,” said Gimli.

“We should be done by then,” added Pippin.

“See you all then!” said Arwen.

“This year, they’re going down,” agreed Boromir. 

And with that declaration, the group scattered off to their campsites.


	9. Learning, Cleaning, and Scheming

“So,” said Pippin, hesitantly, “what are we supposed to be doing to our campsite?”

He and Faramir had been walking at the back of the group, having a silent argument over who would have to ask. At least, that’s what Pippin thought they had been doing. 

“Imagine not knowing because you were too young to work last year,” said Merry, “So glad I can’t relate.” 

Pippin batted at his shoulder and Merry ducked away, laughing.

“Seriously guys,” said Faramir, “we haven’t the faintest idea what we’re doing.”

“Brave of you to admit that you’re dumb,” said Gimli.

“I thought you knew better, Faramir,” added Boromir.

Faramir shoved his brother, who shoved him back. Aragorn, in the front of the group, came to the rescue before another play fight could break out. 

“Boromir, can you start on checking the fire pit and all that while I help these two?” he asked, gesturing at Faramir and Pippin. Boromir sighed and nodded.

“Go ahead, leave all the hard work for me.”

“Alright you two,” said Aragorn, as they started down the path towards Minas Tirith. “Here’s what you’ve got to do. You have your campsite key from Galadriel?”

Faramir dug the small silver key out of his pocket and held it up. It hung on a dark blue bit of ribbon, and fit in with the silver door handles and lights that adorned the wooden cabins. Minas Tirith cabins were built on a base of white stone, which matched the short cliff face that wrapped around the back of the site.

“Fantastic. That’ll open the rest of the cabins, the bathroom, and the supply closet that’s up by the bathroom. You’ll need to clean out your fire pit if it wasn’t done properly last year, and make sure you’ve got full water and sand buckets. Check your wood supply, if it’s low you’ll need to grab more when we’re back at Caras Galadhon.”

They had reached Minas Tirith, and Aragorn was pacing round and round that campsite, pointing out all the things that had to be done. Faramir and Pippin stood in the middle of the ring of five cabins, turning in circles as they tried to watch him. Finally, he stopped.

“Got all that?”

“Could you go through it one more time?” asked Pippin, smiling his best approximation of an innocent smile. Aragorn glared at him. 

“I’ve got it,” said Faramir, typing the last of the list of chores into his phone. “And we should only need logs for the fire pit, yes?”

“Absolutely. Make the kids find the kindling,” said Aragorn.

“I finally get to pass all the work off to other people!” said Pippin, brightly.

Aragorn laughed. 

“I had better head back to Gondor, otherwise Boromir will be complaining all evening. Good luck Faramir.”

“Don’t I get any good luck?”

“I’ll need all the good luck I can get to deal with you as a site partner.”

Aragorn started back down the path, the sound of Pippin and Faramir’s good natured fighting fading behind him. When he returned to Gondor, Boromir had finished cleaning out the fire pit and was now leaning on the cabin nearest to the trail. 

“Goodness, it took you that long just to do the fire pit?”

“I also checked the wood, thank you, and it’s not like I could do a whole lot about anything else.”

“And why’s that?”

“You’ve got our key, idiot.”

Aragorn smiled and held up the bronze key that dangled on a loop of royal blue ribbon. 

“You mean this key?”

Boromir snatched the key from Aragorn and started off through the circle of cabins to the smaller trail that led to the site’s bathrooms. Aragorn laughed and followed him. 

Each of the campsites was themed differently, and it never ceased to amaze any of the councilors how much detail had gone into each one. Only Aragorn, Legolas, and Arwen had been there to help with the construction, but even they were always amazed. 

The Gondor site was one of both Aragorn and Boromir’s favorites. The cabins were all of dark wood, with bronze fixtures and bold carvings of woodlands decorating the window and door frames. Even the bronze key that Boromir was using to unlock the supply closet on the side of the bathrooms fit the theme.

He turned and handed Aragorn the water and sand buckets for the fire pit. 

“I’m going to go unlock the cabins and do a quick scan to see that there’s no leaks and such.”

“Make sure you check the mattresses!” called Aragorn, as Boromir wandered away. “Sometimes they don’t bring enough up when they set up!”

Boromir unlocked each of the cabins and checked each for leaks or other problems. The set up crew last weekend had not only brought up enough mattresses for the sixteen camper beds, but also dark blue curtains for the windows and braided rugs for the floors. 

Each cabin had a bunk bed in the back left corner and the front right corner, with a big open space in the middle. Under the two windows in the middle of the side walls were large, well carved trunks for the kids belongings. 

Why Aragorn insisted on messing with the setup and dragging his bed away from the wall was beyond Boromir. 

“If I’m sweeping Merry, then you’re climbing the poles to check for spiderwebs.”

“It’s a trade that I’m willing to make.”

Sam unlocked the first of the Rohan cabins with the large golden key and hung it by it’s brown ribbon from a convenient peg near the door. 

Rohan cabins, while one of the most aesthetically pleasing sets of cabins, were an absolute nightmare to clean. Sam set about sweeping around the beds in the back two corners of the room, while Merry wriggled his way up one of the posts to clean the spot where they met at the ceiling. 

“Yuck,” he said, putting his hand through a spider web. “I know these cabins look fantastic, but this is disgusting. I’m requesting a new campsite next year.”

“No you won’t,” said Sam, smiling up at Merry. “You like the log cabin look of the Rohan campsite and also the fact that it’s not in the woods.”

Merry groaned. “I hate that you’re right.”

Sam was right, and that was hardly fair. The Rohan cabins felt almost like a camping lodge, with the beams separating the cabins into what felt like two rooms, bunk beds in the back and shelves in the front. It was the site Merry had stayed at his first summer at MESC, and it had always been his favorite. 

At Fangorn, cleaning out spider webs had gone much faster. The cabins all had four posts at the corners, carved to look like tree bark. The ceiling was lower than in Rohan, and rather than try to climb up to it, Frodo and Gimli had simply knocked away any webs with the handle of their broom. 

Frodo had always thought that Fangorn was a bit of a cross between Minas Tirith, with grey stone bases to the cabins, and Gondor, with the wood and bronze cabins. He liked the way the campsite, surrounded by forest, felt set apart from the rest of the camp.

Gimli always complained that staying in the smaller cabins, and especially in the top bunks, felt too much like sleeping in a tree. 

“Are you done with the last cabin yet?” called Gimli, from somewhere outside. 

Frodo finished cleaning off the screen on the windows at the back of the last cabin. “I am now!” he called back. 

“Onto the bathrooms then,” said Gimli. 

Frodo shuddered. 

“My worst nightmare.”

“I hate you so much, Arwen.”

“You keep saying that, and somehow I don’t think you mean it.”

“I mean it this time,” muttered Legolas darkly, as he unlocked the Mirkwood bathrooms with the silver campsite key. The door frames were all carved like the poles in the middle of the cabins, with delicate flowering vines. Very carefully, Legolas hung the key by it’s golden ribbon on one of the pointier leaves. 

Arwen appeared behind him with her arms loaded with cleaning supplies. 

“We’ll each tackle one stall and then we can do the sink together.”

“Fine. I still hate you.”

As they cleaned, Arwen distracted herself by tracing the carvings. They could also be found along the sills of the windows that were tucked between the top and bottom bunks of the cabin beds. Arwen had helped carve some of them, and thought they were beautiful.

As much as Arwen loved Mirkwood, she had always preferred the Minas Tirith site. The beds there had removable lower bunks, so the councilors got much more space in whatever cabin they chose. Arwen was always a little jealous. 

“Come help with the sink!” called Legolas. 

Arwen joined him outside the bathrooms. 

“Are you talking to me now?”

“Alright, how long do we have until they come back?” asked Rosie, pulling out a notebook.

“I say three hours at the most,” said Celeborn, checking the time on his phone.

“So,” said Halbarad, helping Galadriel collect the scattered schedule, “two and a half hours of planning and then we get set up to pretend that we’ve been having a meeting the whole time.”

“Perfect,” said Galadriel. 

“I say,” said Gandalf, sitting down at the table, “that we lull them into a false sense of security. We wait until Thursday to do anything, and then we get some of the older campers to help us mess with the Mirkwood, Fangorn, and Rohan campsites while they’re out camping.”

Galadriel nodded seriously, and Rosie started a fresh set of notes. 

“If we can get away on Friday during either dinner or the fire pit,” began Halbarad, scanning the schedule.

“Then we can mess with the activity sites and they won’t notice until midday Saturday,” concluded Rosie. She made another note.

“And of course, we can always employ the weekend campers while they’re cleaning up on Sunday,” said Galadriel brightly. “They always want to help with that sort of thing.”

“We could always employ campers throughout the week as well, to plant anything we need at the campsites,” pointed out Celeborn. 

Gandalf smiled. 

“They’re going down this year.”


	10. Pizza, Emotions, and a General Disrespect for Authority

“Frodo gets a pass because he’s a vegetarian, but you have no excuse to eat that abomination,” said Gimli, staring down the table at Legolas.

Legolas slowly stopped chewing and looked up in confusion. The rest of the group watched the two stared at each other. Legolas swallowed.

“I like vegetable pizza.”

Gimli and Legolas continued to stare at each other. Very slowly, Legolas brought his slice of pizza up to his mouth and took a bite, not breaking eye-contact. Gimli sighed in disgust. Pippin stifled a laugh behind his hand. Frodo gave Sam a meaningful look. Sam rolled his eyes. 

“Are we done arguing over pizza?” asked Galadriel. “Can we move on?”

“I was never arguing over pizza,” pointed out Legolas. 

“Personally,” said Faramir, “I think that anything made by Rosie is fantastic, no matter what it is.”

“Thank you, Faramir, you’re much nicer than your brother.”

Boromir, who had been discussing a book series quietly with Arwen, glared at Rosie. Celeborn sighed. 

“Can we please get back to work?” he asked. 

“You really can’t expect them to be paying attention while there’s food available,” pointed out Gandalf. 

“Yeah!” added Pippin. “You’ve got to let us finish eating and then we’ll listen to you. Maybe.”

“Well stop talking and hurry up then,” said Galadriel. 

After a round of general complaints, shushed by Celeborn and Galadriel, the group finished eating. Arwen collected their plates and brought them back into the kitchen, where Rosie was overseeing the arrival of the rest of the kitchen staff. 

“Right then,” said Celeborn, when Arwen returned. “We’ve got the rest of the afternoon to get the rest of the camp set up. We’ll meet here for a check in around five, and then we’ll proceed from there.”

Galadriel, who had been whispering to Gandalf behind Celeborn’s back, rejoined the conversation.

“Sam and Pippin, you two stay here and help Rosie and Halbarad with the rest of the arriving staff. Merry, you go with Legolas to set up the archery range. Arwen, you’re with Gimli, and Boromir, you go with your brother. Then that leaves Frodo helping Aragorn with the waterfront.”

It took the councilors several seconds to think through everything that Galadriel had said. Faramir dropped his head onto the table. 

“Please don’t make me work with him,” he muttered into the wood. 

Arwen gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder before standing up. 

“Let’s get going then,” she said brightly. Gimli joined her, and they started out of Caras Galadhon, already talking excitedly. 

“You’ve got to show me your newest project.”

“I’ve just finished one, I’ve got a few ideas for what I’ll do next, and if you want to look through some of them, I’ve been meaning to ask you for some ideas.”

“I’d love to.”

Aragorn and Frodo followed them, Frodo waving his hands about as he tried to explain his latest story to Aragorn. 

“It’s not quite what you’d call steampunk really, but it isn’t quite historical or fantasy either, more of a mix of everything put together.”

“Sounds fantastic as usual, Frodo. Sam was saying he enjoyed the way you’ve written the love interest?”

“Oh yes, Will. He’s my favorite character thus far, although I might be a little bit biased.”

“Frodo, you can’t keep basing characters off of your boyfriend.”

“Who are you to stop me?”

Frodo gave Aragorn a good natured shove and took off running. Aragorn stumbled, then followed him, laughing. 

“You cheater!”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t see it coming!”

Legolas stood, along with Boromir. 

“Ready to go?” Legolas asked Merry. 

Merry sighed and stood up. 

“I suppose so.”

“It’s not that bad, set up for archery is rather easy.”

“If you say so.”

If Sam thought Galadriel was the best adult ever, Merry felt the same way about Legolas. Although that was mostly due to the sheer amount of chaos he was able to cause before he got in trouble. Merry considered him an inspiration for his own pranks. 

“Let’s go get the campsites set up for your classes,” said Boromir, brightly. Faramir groaned, but stood up to follow his brother anyways. 

“We’ll need to gather wood while we’re here, I can guarantee that there isn’t enough up there,” said Faramir. 

Boromir smiled fondly as Faramir continued listing the various things he’d need to collect to run his activities. They both gathered an armful of logs and started off towards the Rivendell pavilion. 

“And we’ll need to get a schedule drawn up so I can have food ready on days that I’ll need it.”

“You’ll want to bring a notebook up there and leave it with your things, it does take a while for campers to get up to Rivendell, although they are only coming from the archery range this year.”

“Sam!” called Rosie, appearing in the kitchen doorway. “Come help us bring the giant bags of flour in.”

“Coming!” Sam called back. He stood, stretched, and made his way into the kitchen. 

Pippin sat and stared at Gandalf. Gandalf stared back. Galadriel looked back and forth between them, like she was watching a tennis match. Gandalf raised an eyebrow. Pippin smiled. Gandalf frowned. Pippin mockingly raised his eyebrow. Galadriel laughed. 

Halbarad, who had reentered Caras Galadhon, stood next to Celeborn. They both watched the exchange with equal parts fascination and confusion. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” asked Halbarad, in a whisper. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” responded Celeborn. “Please make them stop.”

“Pippin!” said Halbarad, loudly. “I have a job for you!”

Pippin, who normally acted like he was allergic to working, popped up out of his seat. Gandalf, acting as if nothing had happened, pulled his notebook closer and began scanning his notes from the earlier staff meeting. 

“What do you need me to do?” asked Pippin, following Halbarad in the general direction of the first aide building. 

“Well, we’ve got to set up the medical logs for the first week, so if you could read through the camper and allergies lists, I’ll fill out the charts.”

“Fantastic.”

Galadriel and Gandlaf were both leaned way back in their seats, watching Pippin and Halbarad until they entered the first aide building. Celeborn, ignoring their giggling, had organized the scattered papers and was now taking notes on a draft of the schedule. 

“He’s definitely done something wrong,” said Galadriel.

“Or he’s about to,” added Gandalf. 

“Or he’s just trying to get Halbarad to tell him what we’re planning for pranks because he knows that Halbarad has a soft spot for him,” said Celeborn. “Here love, could you double check this for me?”

Galadriel took the paper from Celeborn, laughing. Gandalf pushed his notebook over in front of Celeborn, flipping to a list of messy notes. 

“I was thinking,” began Gandalf, “If we switch-”

“No,” said both Galadriel and Celeborn, in unison. 

“You only want to put Arwen and Aragorn at the same site early in the morning because Aragorn’s more affectionate in the morning and you have twenty dollars on them being the first found out,” said Celeborn, without looking up. 

Gandalf sighed. Galadriel kissed Celeborn on the cheek before handing back the papers he’d had her check. 

“Looks good, love.”

“Next to Bergil’s name Gandalf has just written, ‘no impulse control’,” said Pippin, turning a page on the list of campers. 

Halbarad wrote down ‘no impulse control’ on the blue medical log that he was holding. 

“That’s because he doesn’t have any impulse control. How old will he be this year?”

“He’s twelve.”

Halbaraf finished filling out the log, stacked it neatly with the others. He pulled out a fresh sheet, looking up expectantly at Pippin, who was sitting on the counter. Pippin was still looking at him in confusion. 

“Did you write ‘no impulse control’ on my log?”

“No, we wrote ‘hyperactive idiot’. Who’s the next camper?”

“Hang on,” said Pippin, scanning his list to find his place again. “Ah, right. Borlas Captain.”

Halbarad smiled, writing down the name. 

“He’s just barely eleven then, yes?”

“Right. And Galadriel’s written, ‘he might be smarter than Bergil but who knows’.”

“Well,” mused Halbarad, “Faramir seems to have more self control than Boromir does, so maybe there is hope for Borlas.”

“Or Faramir is just better at getting away with stuff, which would mean that we shouldn’t get our hopes up,” pointed out Pippin. Halbarad nodded seriously. 

“We’ll have to keep an eye on him then,” he said, darkly. 

“Oh and he’s got a severe peanut allergy,” said Pippin, reading the entry again.

“Pippin!” scolded Halbarad. “You’ve got to start with the allergies!”

“Ok but Galadriel’s note was funnier.”

“Put that one over there, Sam,” directed Rosie, who had climbed up onto a kitchen counter as soon as the camp directors left Caras Galadhon. 

Sam dropped the last of the bags of flour down in the corner of the kitchen pantry. He pushed a few stray hairs out of his face, wandering back into the kitchen. Rosie, hands on her hips, was surveying the various kitchen staff as they prepped the kitchen for the week. 

Sam leaned on the counter next to her, breathing heavily. 

“Every year,” he said, “I think that it’ll be easier. And it never is.”

“It’s a good workout. Although, at least two of my staff were checking you out while you did it, so I might have to switch you out next year.”

“Rosie!” said Sam, scandalized. 

Rosie shrugged. 

“I’m just telling the truth. And if all they’re looking for is someone strong, well, I am still available.”

“I can’t imagine why,” muttered Sam.

“Oh Sam, have you learned how to use sarcasm?” asked Rosie, teasingly.

“I’ve known how to use sarcasm for a while now, Rose. I’m just too polite to use it,” said Sam, in a condescending tone of voice. 

Rosie smiled affectionately at him. 

“Ah, they grow up so fast,” she said, ruffling his hair. 

Sam batted away her hands.

“Keep that up and I’ll tell Diamond that you’ve got a crush on her.”

Rosie gasped. 

“You wouldn’t!”

“You should specifically use the Shire site when you’re working with Sam and Frodo’s groups.”

“Now I know you may not understand, but I actually have to make an effort to get people to like me. I’m not messing with my chances of them liking me for a joke.”

Boromir added his armful of logs to one of the chests that sat along the back wall of the Rivendell pavilion. He turned to look at Faramir with a frown. Faramir ignored him, checking yet another list on his ever present notes app. 

“Now, I think I’ve mostly got my schedule for classes worked out, but if we could just go over it one-”

“Faramir.”

Faramir turned off his phone with a sigh. 

“What?”

Boromir gestured firmly for Faramir to sit down on another chest. Faramir did, looking up at Boromir with a look of resignation in his eyes. Boromir took a deep breath. 

“I don’t know why you seem to think that you’re unlikeable, but you’re really not.”

Faramir looked down at his hands.

“I’m serious. Do you think Merry trusts just anyone to carry him around on their shoulders? They like you. I’ve worked with them for years, I can tell.”

“That’s the thing, Boromir,” said Faramir, quietly.

“What?”

“You can tell. You can read people. You understand people. I really, really don’t.”

Faramir still wouldn’t look up at Boromir, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt instead. 

“I worry that I’ll mess up and make the wrong joke, or go too far with something, and then they’ll hate me.”

Boromir sat down next to Faramir, who was rapidly blinking back tears. He very carefully wrapped an arm around Faramir’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

“I know.”

Faramir leaned his head on Boromir’s shoulder.

“Let’s make a deal, yeah? We’ll both agree to let the other know when they’re going too far.”

Faramir sat up, looking at Boromir for the first time all conversation. 

“Only if you shake on it,” he said, solemnly. Then, he spit on his hand, and held it out.

“That’s disgusting, Faramir, you know I hate doing that.”

Faramir grinned. 

“That’s why I always insist.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” said Boromir, reluctantly spitting on his hand.

“I know.”

“There. All done,” said Legolas, joining Merry under one of the trees that shaded the Elvenking archery range. “Record time too.”

Merry, flopped down on his back, groaned.

“That was much more work than you said it would be.”

Legolas laughed. 

“You barely did anything!”

“Any work is too much for me, Legolas! You should know that!”

“So, technically,” began Legolas. Merry sat bolt upright. 

“That’s the best way to start a sentence. Please continue.”

“Technically, we’re supposed to report back to Lothlórien when we’re done with setting up. But I’ve been wanting to get some practice in, so if you’d like, you can go break in Arwen and I’s candy stash.”

“You’re the best.”

“I’m well aware. It’s in the wooden box at the back of the archery supplies shed.”

Merry jumped to his feet and disappeared into the shed. 

“No more than one bag, we need some for the rest of the week,” called Legolas, as he followed Merry. 

“No problem,” said Merry, wandering back to the shade with a handful of colorfully wrapped chocolates. “You guys buy the good stuff anyways, I have to take the time to savor it.”

Legolas reappeared, carrying his personal bow. Unlike the camp bows, his was made of wood, and carved with delicate, twisting lines of trees and flowers interspaced with lines of latin quotes. 

“Merry, you have never once in your life taken time to savor anything.”

Merry stuck out his tongue. 

“Keep being mean to me and it’ll take more than this to buy my silence,” he said, gesturing at the candy. 

Legolas rolled his eyes. 

“If you can make threats, then so can I. Keep being annoying and I’ll start asking questions about your love life.”

“Jokes on you, I don’t have one!”

“No? No one you’ve got your eye on? No councilor that you’ve been thinking about?”

Merry looked up in horror. Legolas laughed. 

“Nothing is secret once Arwen hears about it, Merry. Nothing.”

“So, in complete disclosure, I don’t know why she sent us out here at all,” said Aragorn, sitting down on the dock to remove his shoes. “The set up crew Galadriel brings in checks the waterfront before we get here.”

Frodo joined Aragorn in putting his feet in the still water.

“Now that we’ve double checked everything,” continued Aragorn, “we’ve got literally nothing to do.”

“We could go back and get new assignments,” pointed out Frodo.

“Yeah, but let’s wait at least an hour. We’ll be glad of the rest when the kids get here.”

“Very true.”

They sat for a moment in silence, swishing their feet in the lake. 

“And we could always take the time to talk about our partners,” said Aragorn. 

“Oh thank goodness you brought it up, I was almost too scared to,” said Frodo, turning to face Aragorn. “How have you and Arwen been?”

“Oh we’ve been fantastic,” said Aragorn, excitedly. “She’s even starting bringing up marriage, Frodo, marriage!”

“That’s amazing Aragorn!”

“I can’t believe she’d want to marry someone like me.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, you two are perfect together.”

“As are you and Sam!”

“Oh, he’s much too patient, putting up with me. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year!”

“That’s right! Sometime second week, right?”

“Camp’s a bit earlier this year, so it’ll be Saturday after second week.”

“Well now, we’ll have to embarrass you two then!”

“Gimli, it’s far too hot to be lugging heavy boxes up here all afternoon.”

“I said you could take a break, Arwen.”

Arwen dropped the last box from Aragorn’s truck onto one of the workbenches. Gimli, standing in front of the open cupboards at the front of the room, was carefully stacking blocks of modeling clay by color. 

“Can I look at your sketchbook now?”

“Yeah, here, let me just find you those pages…” said Gimli, pulling out his sketchbook. He flipped through until he found the two pages that he was looking for. He pushed the book over to Arwen. 

One page was a sketch of Galadriel, arms crossed, leaning on the Lothlórien porch railing, laughing at the story Arwen had been telling. Her hair was escaping her braid and one of her shoes was untied. 

“That one would be a challenge, because of all the smaller details,” said Gimli, wandering over to one of the windows that looked back over Mirkwood towards the rest of the camp. 

The other page was a sketch of Aragorn, standing with his feet apart, one hand on his hip and the other holding phone out in front of him. He had the most incredibly love-struck look on his face. 

“That one’s a tricky pose, with all his long limbs.”

“Who’s he talking to?” asked Arwen, holding the book closer.

Gimli, who was staring out the window, barely remembered to answer.

“It’s when he called to find out where you were yesterday.”

“Whatcha looking at?” asked Arwen, joining Gimli by the window.

“Are they done already?” she cried in dismay, upon seeing Legolas and Merry in the archery range.

The range, while technically surrounded by the trees, was only down the hill from Erebor, and clearly visible. Merry was laying on the grass, gesturing with his hands. Legolas was carefully aiming his bow, with his back to Erebor.

“That’s not fair at all!” said, Arwen, in distress. 

“Right then,” said Gimli, suddenly. “Let’s get back to work.”

Arwen looked at him with dawning realization. 

“Sure thing boss,” she said with a mock salute. 

“Peace and quiet at last,” whispered Celeborn, closing the door to the camp office behind him. 

From the hallway outside came the sound of Gandalf and Galadriel cursing. Celeborn sighed. He pulled out his phone and opened his radio app again. Turning the volume way up, he set about beginning the filing of paperwork for the first week of camp.

“If one cannot find peace and quiet,” he muttered, “they must make it for themselves.”


	11. Truth or Dare, Racing, and Another Sappy Boyfriend

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you all so prepared for something in my entire life,” said Galadriel, as the councilors sat down for dinner. 

The table was littered with various sweatshirts and jackets. Boromir, Aragorn, and Arwen had all brought backpacks with them. Everyone who had been wearing shorts had changed into long pants, making the table look like a jeans and T-shirts only event. 

Rosie, who was sitting next to Frodo and discussing vegetarian recipes, laughed. 

“They’re always more prepared for their fire pits than they are for anything having to do with the kids.”

“Look,” said Merry, “we don’t get to hang out together much during the year. Let us have this.”

“So long as no one gets set on fire,” conceded Galadriel. 

“You seem rather focused on us all not being set on fire,” said Pippin. “Is there something I should know about from last year?”

Galadriel smiled. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Pippin.”

“I really would.”

“To be completely honest,” said Faramir, “now that Pippin’s brought it up? I’m curious too.”

“No one got set on fire last year,” said Celeborn.

“We’ve got a nice streak of not setting councilors on fire, and we’d like to keep it,” said Gandalf, cheerfully. 

This seemed to satisfy Pippin and Faramir. They, along with the rest of the group, settled back into eating. Pippin and Merry, while both extremely talkative people, could often be made to shut up simply by giving them food. Now was not one of those times.

“Arwen, Halbarad is going to steal your man,” said Merry, gesturing with a fork. 

Halbarad and Aragorn were leaned into one another, whispering rapidly. Neither of them noticed that Merry had called them out. Arwen, sitting between Aragorn and Gimli, smiled fondly at them. 

“Halbarad wishes he could be as pretty as me,” she said. 

Pippin, meanwhile, had started a kicking fight with Legolas under the table.

“You cheater!” said Legolas.

“It’s not cheating, it’s strategy.”

“What has he done this time?” asked Boromir, who had turned away from his own conversation with Sam to watch Pippin and Legolas glare at each other.

“He’s tied my shoe lace to the leg of my chair!”

“That’s- that’s rather impressive, actually,” said Faramir, glancing under the table to find that Pippin had, in fact, managed to tie up Legolas’ shoe. “How’d you manage it?”

Pippin grinned, smugly. 

“A magician never reveals his tricks.”

“You’re not a magician Pippin, you’re a nuisance,” said Gandalf, from down the table. Pippin stuck out his tongue at him. 

“Legolas,” said Gimli, hesitantly, “you’re not stuck, are you?”

Legolas, who was struggling with untying his shoelace, glared down the table at Gimli.

“I’m fine.”

Arwen hid a laugh behind a sip of water, watching as Legolas almost fell out of his seat. He sat back up, blushing furiously but with his shoelace freed. 

Strangely enough, the further through the meal they got, the less any of the councilors talked. By the time that they were collecting their empty dishes, Galadriel, Celeborn, Gandalf, Rosie, and Halbarad were the only ones talking at all. 

“Do you think we could keep them this quiet for the whole week?” asked Halbarad, poking Aragorn in the side. Rosie laughed.

“Wouldn’t bet on it.”

“They’re only quiet because they’re hoping we won’t remember something else that they have to do,” said Galadriel, who was watching the group in amusement, head resting on Celeborn’s shoulder. 

“Should we let them go? Or make them stay a little longer?” asked Rosie, throwing one arm over Frodo’s shoulders. 

“Let them go. It’ll give us more time to plan our pranks for the week,” said Gandalf. 

Galadriel laughed. 

“Well then, go on. We’ll take care of the dishes.”

The councilors all sprang to their feet, collecting their bags and sweatshirts. 

“Thanks Galadriel,” said Sam. Galadriel smiled at him. 

“Don’t let them stay out too late, Sam. You’re our only councilor with any sense of time management.”

“Hey!” Aragorn protested, as Sam nodded solemnly. 

Arwen pressed a kiss to Aragorn’s cheek. 

“Come on or they’ll find something else to make us do instead.”

“I could always use some more helping with set up, if you’re looking to prove yourself responsible,” teased Halbarad. Aragorn stuck out his tongue. Rosie laughed. 

The group started out the door and down the path towards the Rivendell pavilion. 

“Which site shall we use tonight?” asked Gimli, as he and Aragorn gathered several armfuls of supplies.

“Boromir and I already stacked wood up at the Shire sight,” responded Faramir. 

Sam and Frodo both went red. Boromir smiled and pulled Faramir into a side hug while Pippin and Merry were happily teasing their friends. 

“Why Sam, why ever do you look so embarrassed?” asked Merry, as they continued through the Bree site. 

“Well, Merry, it could be the fact that he’s remembering a certain event that occurred last summer,” said Pippin, as the group entered the clearing that held the Shire site. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” said Legolas. “What event might you be referring to?”

“I must admit,” said Faramir, who was helping Aragorn prepare the fire pit, “I’m rather curious as to what event occurred here. You all seem rather keen to talk about it.”

“This is where we kissed for the first time can we move on now please!” said Frodo, all in one breath. 

Amid the resulting giggles, the group settled on the log benches that surrounded the fire pit. Arwen, who’s sweatshirt looked suspiciously more like it was Aragorn’s size, poked Aragorn with her foot. 

“Are you going to start the fire, or shall we all just admire the lovely set up of the logs?”

“I think we should all admire the logs, it’s the best I’ve ever seen,” said Faramir, passing Aragorn the lighter and moving to sit next to his brother. 

Aragorn lit the fire, and sat down between Arwen and Pippin. 

“Well then,” said Merry, brightly. “Time to embarrass each other.”

“In true camp spirit,” said Boromir, “ I suggest that we begin with a game of truth or dare.”

“Actually, in true camp spirit, we should begin by making our resident couples give us an update on their lives,” pointed out Legolas. 

“Yes, of course! Sam and Frodo, you first,” laughed Pippin. 

Sam smiled brightly at the gathered councilors. 

“We wouldn’t want to take the glory of going first from our lovely senior councilors, now would we? Aragorn and Arwen, I insist that you go first.”

Aragorn laughed. 

“Well, since you were so polite about it…”

Arwen leaned her head on Aragorn’s shoulder. 

“We’re just fine, nothing interesting here. Sam and Frodo? I hear you two are moving in together.”

“Everyone has, apparently,” said Frodo, laughing. 

“Come on, give us something interesting,” groaned Merry. 

“We could always move on to questioning the single people in the group about their love lives,” pointed out Aragorn. 

“Truth or dare it is!” shouted Pippin. “I’ll go first.”

Pippin took a minute to survey the circle, before settling on Faramir. 

“Faramir, we’ll start easy.”

“Dare.”

“That’s not easy.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pippin sighed. He leaned back and considered Faramir through narrowed eyes. 

“Let Arwen and Legolas braid your hair.”

Faramir blinked in surprise. 

“That- wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“You don’t seem to be quite so allergic to hair ties as your brother, and I’m trying to convince him that he should braid his hair.”

Boromir sighed. 

“I’m not braiding my hair, Pippin.”

Faramir laughed, and moved to sit in front of Legolas and Arwen, who were discussing what to do with his hair in quiet whispers. 

“Right then,” said Faramir, looking around the circle. “Merry.”

“Truth.”

“Which councilor here have you known the longest?”

“That’s a boring question,” protested Gimli.

“Pardon me for not knowing all of you as well as you know each other.”

“Pippin,” interjected Merry. “And I’m going to ask Legolas.”

“Ah, truth, since I’m doing something at the moment,” said Legolas, who was holding a section of Faramir’s hair out of the way for Arwen. 

“As I don’t know your sexuality, fess up.”

Arwen and Aragorn laughed. Legolas glared at them. 

“I,” he said seriously, “am gay as all hell.”

“Are any of us straight?” asked Frodo, looking around the circle. 

No one moved. Faramir turned to look at his brother, and was immediately pulled back into place by Arwen. 

“Stay still!” she scolded.

“Hang on,” said Pippin. “Quick break. Let’s all have an update on sexuality, because I was pretty sure that we had at least one straight person. I’m aro/ace.”

“Asexual and biromantic,” said Merry, fist bumping Pippin.

“Very gay,” said Frodo.

“Bisexual,” said Sam.

“Pansexual,” said Gimli.

“I am, very recently realized, bisexual,” said Boromir. Faramir turned suddenly again, and was immediately set upon by both Legolas and Arwen. 

“Stop doing that!” said Legolas. 

Ignoring him, Faramir continued the circle. 

“I’m bisexual.”

“You better keep your head still now,” said Arwen. “And I’m demiromantic. 

“Bisexual,” said Aragorn. “Now, Legolas’ turn.”

“Aragorn, you’re going to pick dare, do that thing where you put your hand through the flames.”

Aragorn, without complaint, crouched next to the fire. Winking at Legolas, he passed his hand straight through the top of the fire. Legolas sighed.

“I still don’t understand how you can do that.”

“Not all of us burn as easily as you,” said Aragorn, sitting back down. “Not even your cousin. Now then, Boromir!”

Boromir considered Aragorn for a long minute.

“Truth.”

“What made you realize that you like guys?”

Boromir took a deep breath and shifted forward in his seat. Very seriously, he looked around the group.

“I watched a movie with a really hot guy in it.”

Faramir snorted. 

“What movie?”

“You are not the one asking questions. Speaking of which, Gimli. Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Go get me a stick for roasting marshmallows, I don’t want to stand up.”

Gimli rolled his eyes and wandered off for a moment. He returned with a stick, which he handed to Boromir. Pippin tossed the bag of marshmallows across the fire to Boromir, who easily caught it. 

“Seems the sweet tooth is genetic,” said Aragorn. Both Boromir and Faramir glared at him. He raised his hands in surrender. 

“Arwen,” said Gimli.

“Truth,” said Arwen, handing a section of Faramir’s hair to Legolas. 

Frodo leaned over and whispered in Gimli’s ear. Gimli shooed him away. 

“I already know what I’m going to ask, go away.” 

Frodo frowned at him. Gimli turned back to Arwen.

“What’s your ring size?”

Aragorn coughed on the sip of water he had just taken. Frodo giggled. 

“Are you proposing to my girlfriend?” asked Aragorn, recovering from his shock. 

“If you need it for a project,” said Arwen, smoothly, “then you can measure it the next time I’m up at Erebor.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

“We’re done!” announced Legolas, tying off the end of Faramir’s braid. 

Faramir reached one hand up and ran it over his hair. 

“Like it?” asked Arwen, forcing him to turn around and show it to the rest of the group.

“It’s lovely,” said Faramir. “I mean, as far as I can tell.”

“Well this is all fantastically touching,” said Boromir, “but if we want to watch the sunset from the roof of Rivendell, then we had better head on down.”

Sam and Aragorn carefully cleared the area around the low burning fire, and the group headed back down the path. 

“Race you!” called Pippin, taking off running.

“Cheater!” yelled Merry.

“I really shouldn’t,” said Arwen, watching them go.

“Do it!” said Legolas, giving her a push. “It’ll do them some good to lose.”

“Fine, but only because you made me.”

Arwen took off and easily passed Merry and Pippin. She climbed onto the railing of the pavilion and swung herself up onto the roof. 

“None may enter my realm while I am lady of Rivendell!” she announced, standing with her hands on her hips. “Except Frodo and Sam because they’re the nicest of you lot.”

Aragorn smiled and Legolas rolled his eyes. 

“I’m in love with her,” said Aragorn, in disbelief. 

Legolas threw up his hands in frustration. 

“Really, Aragorn, I never would have guessed!”


	12. Coffee, T-shirts, and Glitter

“Pippin. Pippin. Peregrin Took. Wake up or I’ll take your blankets. Pippin!”

Pippin blinked awake, curled up in a ball with his back to the rest of the cabin. He registered the statement a moment too late, and as he opened his mouth to tell Faramir that he was awake, his blankets were suddenly yanked away. 

“I was awake!” he protested. 

“You’ll have to be quicker to respond next time.”

Pippin rolled over and batted his hand and Faramir’s head. Faramir, already dressed in jeans and his MESC T-shirt, ducked away. Defeated and cold, Pippin climbed out of bed and began rummaging through the shelves built in between the top and bottom bunks. 

He found a clean pair of shorts and tugged them on, beginning his search for his own MESC shirt. He stood up, scanning the shelves in confusion, and the folded shirt hit him square in the back of the head. He turned to glare at Faramir, who was neatly tucking Pippin’s blankets back onto his bed.

“How are you so awake at,” he paused to check his phone, “6:15 in the morning?”

Faramir shrugged.

“I’ve been up for a half hour now.”

Pippin, in the process of putting on his shoes, stopped to stare up and Faramir, who was bouncing on the balls of his feet while he waited by the door.

“Why were you up at 5:45?”

“I went on a run. Are you done yet?”

“You got up, at 5:45 in the morning, to go running?”

“Yeah, come on.”

“Are you cursed?”

Faramir laughed, offering Pippin a hand up off the floor. 

“No, I’m just nervous. Old habit of going running when I can’t sleep. Ready to go?” asked Faramir, handing Pippin both a sweatshirt and his clipboard.

Pippin gratefully pulled on the sweatshirt and nodded. The reality that the campers would be arriving that morning was quickly setting in. Faramir was nervously fretting with the hem of his flannel. Pippin took a deep breath.

“Have you got the stuff?” asked Pippin.

“Of course.”

“Let’s get a move on, then.” 

“Wouldn’t want to be late.” 

The two hesitated for a moment.

“Race you to Lothlórien?” asked Pippin.

“Oh you’re on.”

“Arwen, where’d I leave my camp shirt?” called Legolas, from inside the cabin.

Arwen, who had been braiding her hair deftly as she wandered around the campsite, smiled. 

“Lost it already?” 

“No, I know I hung it up to dry two days ago, and I remember taking it down yesterday, but- Oh for goodness sake Arwen, we’re not five anymore.”

“Really? I never would have guessed from your behavior.”

Legolas appeared, shirtless and frowning darkly at Arwen. 

“Where is it this time?”

“I’m offended that you would think that I did something to it.”

“Arwen, you’ve stolen it every year that we’ve worked here. At this point, you have no alibi.”

Arwen just smiled. 

“I’ve done nothing to your shirt. And it’s nearly 6:15, if you want to get down to Lothlórien early enough for fresh coffee, you’d better hurry up and find your shirt.”

Legolas glared at her and stalked back into the cabin. Arwen tied off one of her braids and started on the other. From inside the cabin, there was a dull thunk and then a loud sigh. Arwen giggled. Legolas reemerged, wearing his shirt under a green flannel and carrying his clipboard.

“I told you I didn’t do anything,” said Arwen. She tied off her other braid and picked up her clipboard from where she had left it on top of the wood pile. “Ready to go then?”

“You are the worst.”

Despite getting up at 6:20, Frodo and Gimli actually managed to be the first to arrive at Caras Galadhon. They were not the first to arrive at Lothlórien, but they didn’t know that.

“Morning loves,” called Rosie, from across the kitchen.

“Good morning Rosie,” said Frodo, brightly.

“There’s bagels and bread for toast on the counter. Do either of you want coffee?”

“I’ll take coffee,” said Gimli, while Frodo made his way over to the counter.

Frodo was buttering a piece of toast when a jacket was draped over his shoulders from behind. Recognizing the windbreaker, he turned around with a smile.

“Good morning Sam,” he said, pulling his boyfriend into a hug. 

"It would be, if you would remember to wear a sweatshirt."

Frodo laughed and kissed Sam on the nose.

Merry, who had joined Rosie and Gimli at the coffee maker, groaned. 

“It’s barely 6:30. If you’re too sweet now I’ll get sick.”

Frodo stuck at his tongue at Merry over Sam’s shoulder. The door to Caras Galadhon slammed, and Gandalf wandered into the kitchen. 

“You all haven’t seen Pippin yet, have you?”

There was a general round of ‘no’s, and Gandalf sighed. 

“We’re all in trouble then. I need a coffee to deal with this.”

Rosie sighed and handed him a mug. 

“Don’t we all,” she said, sympathetically. 

“Good morning I hope that you all have eaten because we still have lots to do before the kids get here I hope you are all wearing your shirts where are the rest of you,” said Galadriel, striding into the kitchen. 

She looked almost terrifying, clipboard in hand and anxiety in her eyes. Celeborn followed her, also carrying a clipboard, but somewhat calmer. He put an arm around her waist as he addressed the councilors. 

“Has anyone seen our missing camp sites this morning?”

“We’re here!” said Arwen, cheerfully. 

She and Legolas slipped around Celeborn and Galadriel, into the kitchen. Legolas put two bagels in the toaster and sat on the counter to braid his hair. Arwen joined the crowd at the coffee maker and began filling two mugs. Galadriel, somewhat calmer, spoke again.

“Alright, I’ll have to ask you to eat as you work, because we do have plenty to do. If we’re still missing anyone when I’m done, Arwen, you go and fill them in.”

Arwen nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She handed the other mug to Gimli.

“Give that to Legolas for me?” she asked. 

Gimli completed the task as quickly as possible and moved immediately to the other side of the room. Arwen and Frodo shared a look. Galadriel continued her list.

“Frodo, if you could set up the campsite signs for bags and all that, that would be fantastic. Legolas and Merry, when Pippin joins you I want you three to set up the projector in Lothlórien and make sure everything is set up for the camp meeting.”

Legolas raised his coffee cup in acknowledgment before taking a sip. Galadriel went to speak again, but was cut off by a sudden bout of screaming from outside. 

At exactly 6:19, one minute before Boromir’s alarm had been set to go off, Aragorn’s alarm did. Aragorn had stuffed his phone into Boromir’s pillow case the night before, meaning that Boromir was awoken by the sudden sound of _Happy_ playing directly next to his ear.

“Aragorn, I am going to kill you!” he yelled over the music. 

Aragorn, who was already gathering his clothes for the day, laughed. 

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Or would I?” asked Boromir, throwing the still ringing phone at Aragorn. Aragorn caught it and threw his pillow back. He turned off the alarm, just as Boromir’s went off, playing _Here Comes the Sun_ again from where Aragorn’s pillow had been. 

They both looked at each other, then down at the phones, then back at each other again. Then they burst out laughing. 

Aragorn turned off the second alarm, and traded the phone for his pillow. They both quickly got dressed and Boromir collected their clipboards. 

“Look at that, we’ll only be about five minutes late,” said Aragorn, checking the time as they started for Lothlórien. “That’s probably a record for both of us.”

“Some of us are normally on time,” said Boromir, giving Aragorn a shove. 

The two were still fighting goodnaturedly when they passed in front of Lothlórien. Just as they were about to step around the building, Faramir and Pippin came tumbling out of the front door, holding several empty jars. Pippin ran into Boromir before realizing that other people were there. 

“I- what- why were you in Lothlórien?” managed Aragorn. 

Faramir and Pippin looked at each other and laughed. Pippin smiled innocently up at Boromir and Aragorn. 

“Glitter bombing!” he said brightly. Then he threw a handful of glitter in Boromir’s face. 

Boromir screamed. 

The rest of the councilors came running out from Lothlórien to find Faramir doubled over in laughter while Boromir tried to wipe the glitter off his face. 

“What did you do this time Pip?” asked Merry, gleefully. 

Pippin turned on the rest of the group with a gleam in his eyes. Gandalf, Galadriel, and Celeborn had made their way to the front. Pippin reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another handful of glitter, which he tossed over their heads. 

“Glitter bomb!”


	13. Set-up, Campers, and Walkie-Talkies

“Pippin, I was going to let you and Merry do set up together, but I’m switching you and Gimli. You’ll be down in the parking lot with Boromir,” said Galadriel. “And Faramir, Rosie will fill you in on what you’re doing out at your campsite.”

Pippin gave Galadriel a mock salute. Faramir had the decency to at least look a little regretful. 

“Alright then everyone, we have an hour to get ready, you know what your jobs are,” said Celeborn, shooing the councilors away from Lothlórien. 

Gandalf handed Pippin a list of his assigned jobs, along with a bagel. Rosie gave Faramir a plate with a piece of toast and an apple. She flung one arm across Faramir’s shoulders, which was rather impressive given that she was several inches shorter than him, and began listing the things that he’d need to know from the meeting he’d missed.

“Hold on,” said Merry, standing in the middle of the dissolving group with his hands on his hips, “who’s going on a coffee run?”

Gandalf wearily raised his hand.

“I will not be accepting orders with more than five modifiers,” he said, to the immediate grumbling of several councilors.

Galadriel pulled a face.

“You all just had coffee, how do you take in that much caffeine and sugar this early in the morning?”

Celeborn gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder while scribbling down his order on a page ripped from Gandalf’s notebook. He glanced at Galadriel, who yawned, and added an order for her as well before handing it off.

The paper made its way slowly around the group back to Gandalf, who tucked it away in his pocket.

“I’ll be back in half an hour, don’t burn the camp down,” he said, heading off towards the parking lot.

“Again with the fire,” muttered Pippin. 

He and Boromir fell in step a few feet behind Gandalf. Boromir was carrying a set of signs for the parking lots under one arm, and using the other hand to hold Pippin back from stepping on Gandalf’s shoelaces. 

“You seriously need some new ways to be annoying, Pip,” he said as Pippin almost tripped himself.

“Hey! Only Merry gets to call me Pip.”

Boromir raised his free hand in surrender.

“My mistake. Here, set this sign up to block the entrance of the other parking lot.”

Pippin, uncharacteristically quiet, waited until Gandalf had pulled out onto the road to set up his sign. He and Boromir met back up in between the two parking lots.

“Rock paper scissors, loser has to direct people into parking spots,” suggested Boromir.

“And winner?”

“Tell people to head up to Lothlórien.”

“I’d say deal, but I think I’m really too short to direct cars, so I should just take the other job,” said Pippin, ducking around Boromir to sit by the dirt road up to the rest of the camp. 

Boromir laughed and joined him in the shade.

“You got off easy, since our job is just to wait in case there’s any early campers,” he said. “Also, you owe me for letting you take the easy job.”

Pippin dug around in his pockets and offered Boromir a piece of chocolate. Boromir glared at him.

“The Steward line cannot be bought with-“

Pippin slowly and deliberately added a pack of M&Ms to the candy. Boromir paused, then let out a loud sigh. He took the candy and tucked it away in his own pocket.

“You’re a horrible, horrible person, Pippin.”

“Oh, I know. But I’m also short, so I’m cute enough to get away with it.”

Just then, Sam wandered down from the camp. He gave a long sigh at the sight of Boromir and Pippin sitting in the grass. 

“You forgot your radios,” he said, handing over two walkie-talkies. 

“Thanks Sam! We’re very busy and would not have been able to come and get them once we realized!” said Pippin, brightly. Sam frowned at him.

Boromir clipped his to his pants, but Pippin continued to fiddle with his. 

“Hey Sam, how do you-”

“Well, got to go, lots of things to do, don’t have time to help you,” said Sam, speed walking away. 

“Celeborn will get around to telling us the channels when he has a moment,” said Boromir, in answer to Pippin’s pleading face. 

As if summoned by Boromir’s words, their phones chimed. 

MESC STAFF  
CELEBORN  
Channel 1 - Galadriel  
Channel 2 - Me  
Channel 3 - Gandalf  
Channel 4 - Aragorn  
Channel 5 - Arwen  
Channel 6 - Boromir  
Channel 7 - Faramir  
Channel 8 - Frodo  
Channel 9 - Gimli  
Channel 10 - Legolas  
Channel 11 - Merry  
Channel 12 - Pippin  
Channel 13 - Sam  
Channel 14 - Camp directors  
Channel 15 - everyone

“See? Right on time. This button on the side is to talk, this dial is volume, this switches the channels, and this is the power button,” said Boromir, pointing to Pippin’s walkie talkie. 

Pippin nodded, then began messing with the buttons. He checked his phone again, and then spoke into the microphone. 

Sam, who was just arriving back at the Rohan site, jumped as his walkie-talkie crackled to life. 

“Despite your best efforts, I have managed to figure out how the walkie-talkies work. You will now never know peace.”

Sam sighed. Flipping to channel 15, he responded.

“Pippin, I know that’s you, if you use these to talk to me without good reason I’ll steal yours, consequences be damned.”

There was a burst of static, and then a chorus of overlapping voices.

“Please don’t steal or break the walkie-talkies.”

“Sam, that language is entirely uncalled for.”

“You tell him love.”

“If you’re all going to be petty I’ll turn off mine for good.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Merry was sitting on a log bench next to the fire pit when Sam arrived in Rohan. He turned to look at Sam with a wide smile. 

“Don’t,” said Sam.

“Damn the consequences!” said Merry, as Sam sat down next to him.

“Time?” asked Sam, ignoring Merry’s amusement.

“Just nearing 7:30.”

“Campers will be arriving soon then.”

“Scared?”

Sam rolled his eyes and gave Merry a shove. 

“Whatever you want to believe.”

“What’d you do?” Rosie asked Pippin, as she and Faramir made their way through the parking lots.

“I did absolutely nothing, thank you.”

“He radioed Sam to tell him that he figured out how to use it,” said Boromir, unhelpfully. Faramir laughed.

“Now you’ve got to get better at mimicking the other councilors so he can’t tell who it is,” he said. Pippin smiled.

“That’s genius! I’ll start now. Start talking Boromir, I’m going to learn your speech patterns.”

Rosie pulled out the keys to her truck, and she and Faramir got it. They drove slowly back up to Lothlórien, where Rosie parked next to the building. She handed Faramir a stack of signs from the bed of the truck.

In the field across from Lothlórien, he set up the signs, one for each campsite, spaced well apart. Then he joined Rosie, sitting on the bed of the truck. Rosie was sitting cross legged, texting someone with a smile on her face. Faramir laid back, staring up at the fluffy clouds.

“Who ya texting?”

“That is absolutely none of your business.”

Faramir propped himself up on his elbows to try and look at the phone screen.

“Is it Diamond?” 

Rosie turned to glare at him, although there was no heat in her gaze.

“It might be. Who told you about that?”

“Sam might have mentioned it.”

Rosie laughed. 

“You’ve no loyalty to him, have you? Sold him out immediately.”

Faramir laid back down with a smile. One of you brought me food this morning, and it wasn’t Sam. Plus, you seem nice. Well, perhaps not nice, but...”

Rosie swatted at his knee.

“I am absolutely the nicest person here, don’t let anyone’s slander get to you.”

“Sure you are. Now, what am I supposed to be doing when the kids get here?”

“Ah, are you nervous,” teased Arwen.

She came up behind where Legolas was sitting on a tree stump just outside the circle of cabins, humming and scribbling in his notebook. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she rested her cheek on top of his head. He quickly closed his notebook.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Probably only to me.”

Legolas sighed, leaning back against Arwen.

“What gave it away?”

“The wandering off, the fact that you’re not writing, you’re just humming and doodling, the fact that you’re always nervous on the first day of camp,-”

“Ok ok, I get it!” said Legolas, pulling away and turning to face Arwen. 

“No one else is much better. I just happen to know all your tells.”

“Are you nervous?”

“I always am.”

They both looked up at the sudden sound of footsteps coming towards the campsite. Arwen hurried out between the cabins to meet them. 

“Hello, I’m Arwen, what’s your name?”

“I’m Lorro!”

Legolas took a deep breath, tucked his notebook away, and walked around the outside of the cabins. He paused again, and then stepped out onto the path and walked into the campsite. Arwen smiled at him over the shoulders of the parents, and waved him into the group.

“This is our other councilor, Legolas. He’s teaching archery this summer”

Lorro, a boy with short brown hair, turned excitedly to his parents. 

“You can go away now. They’re cooler than you.”

Legolas and Arwen laughed. 

Lorro’s parents hugged him and said their goodbyes. Arwen offered to answer their questions about camp while Legolas led Lorro into the campsite.

“Let’s pick out a cabin, and then we can wait for your bags to be driven up. It shouldn’t be long now.”

“And you’ve checked in with Halbarad in the first aide building?” asked Aragorn.

The mother he was talking to smiled. 

“Yes, we’re all set.” 

She turned to her son, who was hanging back. 

“Come on now, you were all excited this morning Arnaldr,” she said, kindly.

The fifteen year old cautiously stepped into the campsite. Aragorn smiled.

“There’s not many kids here yet, so you can have your pick of the cabins,” he said gesturing with a wide sweep of his arm. “Although, between you and me, this one on the end is the best. No sun in your eyes in the morning.”

Arnaldr smiled. 

“If you say so, then I’ll pick that one.”

Aragorn smiled at the mother as he and Arnaldr made their way to the cabin. Just as they were across the path, Rosie’s truck slowly rolled into the campsite. 

“You pick a bunk, I’m going to help Rosie unload the bags,” said Aragorn. 

Arnaldr and his mother disappeared into the cabin, where a girl and her parents were already setting up. Aragorn joined Rosie at the back of the truck, moving bags gently into a pile next to the fire pit. She smiled as he approached, and climbed up into the bed of the truck to pass the bags down to him. 

“You’re always so good with the hesitant kids,” she said.

“It’s easy,” said Aragorn, handing a bag over to a kid next to him. “You just have to act like you’re old friends. They’re always scared that they don’t know anyone, so you prove them wrong.”

“Life tips from Aragorn, tell kids that they are incorrect to make them feel more at home,” said Rosie, handing him a particularly heavy bag.

“You are a horrible rude lady and I am never talking to you again.”

“I think that we both know that’s a lie and that you’ll apologize to me at the camp meeting later.”

“That doesn’t change a single thing that I said.”

“What’s your name?” asked Galadriel, smiling at the young girl who had marched up to her.

“Liatris Gardner.”

“Well Liatris, you’re going to be in the Fangorn campsite. You can leave your bags over by the Fangorn sign and we’ll take them out to the campsite for you.”

Liatris nodded seriously. Her parents caught up to her, smiling apologetically at Galadriel. 

“So sorry, she’s very fast when she wants to be,” said her mother.

Galadriel laughed. 

“I have the feeling that she’ll be keeping my councilors in line this week. Your campsite is Fangorn, the first site down the path to your right. Don’t forget to check in at the first aide building.”

Liatris and her parents headed down towards Fangorn. Galadriel checked off Liatris’ name on her clipboard. Celeborn smiled at her over the shoulder of the man he was explaining the camp map to. A steady stream of campers had been coming through since just past eight, but it was starting to slow down now. 

Galadriel realized with a start that Gandalf had been gone for nearly an hour and a half now. Frowning, she checked her phone. Nothing. She pulled out her walkie-talkie with a sigh.

“Does anyone know why Gandalf is apparently dead?”

Nearly immediately, Pippin responded.

“Check his twitter.”

“I’m not going to ask why you’ve checked twitter, but thank you.”

Sure enough, his most recent tweet read, ‘this moth brings a message’ followed by a butterfly emoji and ‘I THINK MY OLD COWORKER IS FOLLOWING ME AND I REALLY DON’T WANT TO TALK TO HIM, HELP’.

Galadriel sighed. 

“Rescue trip number two, Gandalf ran into Saruman at Starbucks again.”


	14. A Challenge, Camp Meetings, and New Friends

Galadriel gratefully took another sip of the coffee that Gandalf had eventually returned with. It was nearing 9:30, and they were only missing a few campers. Celeborn joined her in sitting on the porch steps. He stole her clipboard and began comparing their lists of checked-in campers. Gandalf, who had been setting down the trays of coffee inside, wandered out to look over Celeborn’s shoulder. 

“How many are we still missing?” he asked. 

“You would know if you hadn’t spent an hour and a half locked in your car so that you wouldn’t have to talk to Saruman,” said Celeborn, pushing him away. 

“We’re missing about ten now,” said Galadriel, turning to look at Gandalf. “Is he really working at Mordor now?”

“I think so. I don’t know where else he would have gone.”

Galadriel sighed. 

“I would say I miss him, but he was always kind of a-” started Gandalf, but he was shushed by both Celeborn and Galadriel as a family approached. 

Galadriel took back her clipboard and went to meet them. She smiled as she recognized the two boys.

“Bergil, Borlas, welcome to camp!”

“Sorry we’re late,” began Beregond, but he was cut off by Bergil. 

“We brought you cookies!” he announced, holding up a plastic container with ‘Thank you’ written on it in messy handwriting.

“You’re certainly not late, and I’m sure my councilors will appreciate the cookies,” said Galadriel, smiling. “I’m not sure where Rosie’s got to, but you can leave your bags with us and we’ll get them out to your campsites.”

Beregond set down the boy’s bags. Borlas, who was a carbon copy of his older brother, tapped Galadriel on the arm. 

“I’m not in the same campsite as Bergil, am I?”

Galadriel laughed.

“No, you’ll be at Rohan, and Bergil will be at Fangorn.”

Borlas nodded seriously. 

“That’s ok then.”

“You all just check in at the first aide building and then head out to your campsites, down this path to the right,” said Galadriel. 

“Thanks!” called Beregond, as Bergil and Borlas pulled him away. 

Celeborn checked them off on his list while Galadriel sat back down.

“Now we’re missing ten.”

Gimli checked his watch and then caught Frodo’s attention from where he was standing, outside the circle of campers. He indicated the time and Frodo nodded. 

“Alright, this is going to be our last round,” said Frodo, to the campers. “We’ve got to head down to the camp meeting soon. Now, Liatris, you’re our detective, so you go with Gimli while I pick a new frog.”

Liatris hid behind one of the cabins. Gimli watched as Frodo quietly pointed to Thete, who was so excited he nearly fell over. 

“We’re ready Liatris!” called Frodo. 

Liatris marched into the middle of the circle of campers, looking each kid carefully in the eye. When her back was turned, Thete stuck his tongue out at Bergil, who dramatically fell backwards into the dirt. Liatris whirled around to survey the kids sitting around Thete. 

As Liatris continued to stare down the other campers, Gimli collected his and Frodo’s clipboards, double checking that their whole group had arrived. Thete stuck his tongue out at Frodo, who took the time that he spent lying down to clip his walkie-talkie back onto his pants pocket. 

“It’s Thete!” declared Liatris, suddenly. 

Thete nodded. 

“Do I get to be the detective next time we play?” he asked.

“Of course you do,” said Frodo, brushing dirt off of his arm. “Now everyone go line up with Gimli!”

“Alright, let’s try our count off,” said Gimli, carefully stepping between the two kids that were arguing over being in the front of the line.

“One!” said Liatris. 

Two through fifteen were called without much pausing, and Frodo handed Gimli an abandoned water bottle, which Gimli held up for the campers to see.

“Who’s water bottle is this?”

Thete, who was quickly becoming known as the most forgetful camper in the group, raised his hand. 

“That’s mine.”

Gimli handed it over.

“Go put it in your cabin real quick, and we’ll be on our way.”

Thete ran back to his cabin, then returned to hold Frodo’s hand at the back of the line. 

“Ready to go!” called Frodo. 

“Well then, let’s get going,” said Gimli. “Liatris and Bergil, would you like to help lead the way?”

“You’re our second group to arrive,” said Gandalf, as Sam and Merry led their group up to Lothlórien. “Go ahead and have them sit behind the Fangorn kids,” she added to Sam. 

Sam led the kids into the room, helping them sit in neat rows behind the younger kids. Merry helped Viola, who had been clinging to his hand, sit down with Borlas, who immediately got her to talk. A little bit of her homesickness seemed to melt away as the two of them started talking about their dogs. 

Merry joined Sam, Frodo, and Gimli in the back of the room, where they finally got their coffee. 

“You’re good at dealing with homesickness,” said Sam. “I was worried that Viola would have to go home.”

“She and Bergil would make great friends, they’ve got very complementary personalities,” said Merry, with a shrug. He took a sip of coffee, watching Gandalf tell the kids a story.

“How is this coffee still warm?” asked Gimli, in disbelief. 

Legolas, who was leading his group into Lothlórien, laughed. 

“Magic,” he said. 

Gimli rolled his eyes, turning away from Legolas. Frodo took a long sip of his coffee, carefully avoiding Sam’s eyes. Arwen, who’s hair was entirely re-braided, joined the group. 

“Who did your hair, it looks fantastic,” said Frodo. 

Arwen smiled.

“Háwyn wouldn’t take no for an answer. I let her do my hair once last year and now she wants to do it all the time.”

“I think it looks lovely,” said Boromir, who was walking backwards so that he could play a clapping game with the girl at the front of his line.

“Are you two dating?” demanded the girl. Arwen glared at Boromir, who laughed and shook his head.

“No, we’re not dating. Now why don’t you start our row here, and Arnaldr, you next to Eona,” recovered Boromir, directing the kids to sit in a line. Aragorn and Arwen shared an eye roll that went unnoticed by Eona and the other kids. 

Faramir led his group in last, Tessa and Nathalie leading him as though he were a camper. 

“The twins have taken your brother under their wing,” said Aragorn, elbowing Boromir as the two collected their coffee.

“Some responsible had to,” said Pippin, smiling innocently at Boromir. 

Faramir detached himself from the girls and joined the group at the back of the room. Gandalf’s story ended with a poof of glitter that had been hidden in his pocket. The younger kids in the front laughed as the glitter landed in their hair. Galadriel and Celeborn joined Gandalf at the front of the room. 

“Oh, he got me a tea!” said Faramir. 

Boromir shook his head at Faramir’s excitement. 

“I don’t think he actually needs us to write down our orders anymore,” said Legolas. “He’s just got it all memorized.”

“How I ended up with a brother who doesn’t drink coffee is beyond me,” muttered Boromir. 

“Hey,” said Frodo, “tea is much better than coffee.”

Boromir took several steps away from Frodo, hiding behind Aragorn. Sam and Frodo laughed. At the front of the room, Galadriel gave them a warning look. Outside Lothlórien, there was a quiet peal of laughter. Arwen leaned back and looked out the window. 

“Diamond’s arrived,” she said.

“Oh no,” said Sam. “I was enjoying Rosie’s quiet pining.”

“Halbarad will be happy,” said Pippin. “He hasn’t been enjoying covering for head of staff with Rosie.” 

“Why not?” asked Gimli.

“Too much interaction with people.”

Diamond and Rosie entered Lothlórien, talking excitedly in whispers. Sam sighed deeply. Frodo laughed and whispered something in his ear. Sam shook his head but pulled Frodo into a side hug anyways. Diamond offered Rosie a sip of her coffee, which Rosie took. 

“She doesn’t like coffee,” muttered Sam, to Frodo and Arwen’s great amusement. 

“Councilors!” called Galadriel. They all rushed to hide their drinks on the counter as the kids turned to look at them. “

“Why don’t you come up and introduce yourselves?”

They made their way up between the campers to join Galadriel, Celeborn, and Gandalf at the front of the room. Rather disorderly, they managed to form a line with all the campsites together. Pippin, at one end of the line, and Merry, at the other, looked at each other for a moment. Then they ran a quick round of rock paper scissors. Merry lost, and several Minas Tirith kids cheered. 

“I’m Merry, I’m at Rohan.”

“I’m Sam, I’m also working at Rohan.”

“Boromir, I’m with Gondor.”

“I’m Aragorn, and I’m staying with Gondor and running the waterfront.”

“I’m Arwen, I’ll be hanging out with Mirkwood.”

“I’m Legolas, I’m teaching archery and helping out at Mirkwood.”

“My name is Frodo, and I’m at Fangorn.”

“I’m Gimli, I’m at Fangorn and also I’ll be teaching the arts classes.”

“I’m Faramir, I’ll be teaching wilderness skills and also hanging out at Minas Tirith.”

“And I’m Pippin, I’ll be at Minas Tirith.”

The kids cheered again as the councilors made their way back to their coffee. Rosie and Diamond had left again to get ready for lunch, although Rosie had left a sticky note on Sam’s tea that read ‘If you manage not to get found out for the whole first week I’ll confess’.

“Tough choice there,” teased Arwen. “Be a touch starved gay for a week or continue to listen to Rosie’s pining.”

Sam sighed, and Frodo rolled his eyes. 

“Diamond will ask her out at the end of the summer anyways.”

“Alright now,” called Celeborn. “Let’s start with Gondor, go ahead and line up at the door.”

Aragorn tossed his coffee cup and met his group at the door. Boromir went down the line, counting each kid with a high five. 

“All set!” he called. 

“Now Minas Tirith,” said Galadriel, as Aragorn started for Caras Galadhon. 

Pippin waited at the door while his group lined up. Tessa and Nathalie were arguing over being at the front of the line. Carefully, Pippin separated them. 

“Tessa, can you count our group for me? I need someone to walk at the back and make sure that we don’t lose anyone.”

Tessa, happy to help out the councilors, loudly counted each kid and joined Faramir at the end of the line. 

“Are we all here?” asked Faramir. 

“Yup!” said Tessa, brightly. 

“Alright then. Nathalie, lead us to the dining hall,” said Pippin. 

“Mirkwood, line up with Legolas,” said Arwen, accepting Háwyn’s hand. 

At the front, Legolas counted each kid as they joined the line. He gave a thumbs up to Arwen, who nodded. 

“Let’s go!” said Legolas, leading them out of Lothlórien. 

“Fangorn, let’s get in number order,” said Frodo. 

Liatris bounced to the front of the line. 

“Count off!” said Gimli, when they were all in line. 

Frodo stuck his tongue out at Merry and Sam while the kids counted off smoothly. Merry rolled his eyes. Liatris giggled. 

“You’re acting like little kids,” she informed them. 

“Well then,” said Frodo, “since you are much more mature, would you like to lead us to Caras Galadhon?” 

Liatris smiled widely and set off towards the dining hall. Sam stepped into the doorway to keep Borlas from following the other group. 

“You’ve got to wait for the rest of us,” he said, as Merry rounded up the rest of the kids. 

“All good!” called Merry. 

“Alright Rohan, let’s go!” 

The group made their way down the hill to Caras Galadhon, and joined the line of kids washing their hands. Aragorn, standing at the head of the line supervising, was singing the ABCs for each kid to make sure that they really washed their hands. When the last camper had washed their hands and sat down at a wooden table, the councilors helped Rosie and her staff bring out the food. 

Faramir had just sat down at his table when a camper hugged him from behind. Turning, he found both Bergil and Borlas beaming at him.

“Hello you two!” he said. 

“Hello Faramir!” said Bergil, brightly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Dad says you’ve been at school and it sounds boring,” added Borlas.

“I’ve missed the two of you as well,” said Faramir, ruffling Bergil’s hair. “But the two of you need to go eat.”

They went back to their tables with one last hug, and Boromir, who was sitting at the table next to Faramir’s, laughed. 

“What if the kids don’t like me?” he teased. 

“Hush up,” said Faramir, smiling. 

Thete, who had joined his sister at Faramir’s table, looked back and forth between Boromir and Faramir. Finally, he came to a conclusion. 

“Are you twins?”


	15. Pranks, Campsite Bonding, and Water Balloons

“Now Pippin here,” said Merry, squeezing himself in between two campers at Pippin’s table. “Hasn’t eaten a vegetable in several years, so you all will have to remind him what these are called.” 

He gestured at the salad on Pippin’s plate and the kids laughed. A Minas Tirith girl sitting next to Merry seriously speared a tomato on her fork and held it up. 

“This is a tomato.”

“Thank you, Eadis,” said Pippin, while Merry tried to hide his laughter. 

“What’s this one?” Pippin asked, holding up a piece of lettuce by the corner. 

“That’s lettuce.”

“Well, good luck learning all about vegetables,” said Merry, patting Pippin on the back as he stood up. “I can tell that you’re in good hands.”

“This one is a cucumber,” said Eadis, pointing with her fork. 

Pippin examined the cucumber. 

“Are you sure?”

Across the dining hall, Arwen’s hair was being re-braided again, this time by committee. Háwyn had drawn in Flaila, another girl from Mirkwood, and Lukas, from Rohan, to help her. The younger boy stood in between the two girls, directing their braids. 

“No no, bring that one to this side,” he demanded. 

Háwyn obliged, handing a smaller braid over to Flaila. Lukas nodded seriously. 

“Have any of you finished eating?” asked Arwen. 

“Definitely,” said Háwyn. Flaila shrugged. Lukas held up his handful of chips.

“I’m still eating,” he pointed out. 

“Well, try not to get any of it in my hair, ok?”

Arwen stuck out her tongue at Legolas, who was sitting a few tables away and laughing at her. 

“Hey you three, why don’t you braid Legolas’ hair when you’re done with mine?” asked Arwen loudly, smiling at Legolas. 

“Ok,” said Háwyn. “We’re almost done with yours anyways.”

Arwen winked at Legolas, who sighed and started to undo his braid. One of the boys sitting at Legolas’ table jumped up. 

“I’ll help!”

Arwen laughed as Flaila finished off the braid in her hair and the four kids descended on Legolas. Rosie, who was passing by with a stack of empty dishes, paused to watch them argue over what to do with his hair. She turned to look at Arwen. 

“I assume that this is your fault?”

“Quite possibly.”

“How we get anything done at this camp is beyond me.”

“Alright everyone!” called Gandalf, from the front of the room. “We need you all to be finishing up your eating now.”

Celeborn sighed. 

“Councilors,” he said, stepping slightly in front of Gandalf, “once your whole group is together outside, head back to your campsites.”

The room was immediately noisy. Councilors collected their things and moved to the door to organize the chaos. Campers put their dishes in the appropriate stacks by the kitchen and rushed to find their groups. Outside, campsites collected in loose circles. 

“Arwen’s right over there,” said Sam, standing at one door and directing a lost child. 

Frodo, who was helping kids at the other door, smiled at Sam over the sea of children. Sam gave him a frown and gestured vaguely towards the kitchen, where Diamond was leaning on the door frame and watching Rosie work. Frodo rolled his eyes. 

As the dining hall emptied out, Sam made his way over to Merry. 

“All here?”

“Show Sam what you’ve learned!” called Merry, to the assembled group. “Remember, Eithon starts!”

Eithon, standing next to Sam, was practically vibrating with excitement. 

“One!” 

The group counted off, with only a little prompting from Merry. 

“Oh, fantastic job!” said Sam, clapping. “Let’s head back to our campsite.”

Beside them, Frodo had just made his way back to his group. 

“I bet we can be louder than Rohan,” said Gimli, and the kids cheered. 

“ONE!” shouted Liatris. 

Merry stuck his tongue out at Frodo and Gimli as the Fangorn kids continued yelling. The Rohan group started down the path towards their campsites, and Frodo smiled. 

“Do we all have enough energy to beat Rohan to our campsite?” he asked. 

“Yeah! Come on guys, let’s run!” said Bergil. 

The kids took off down the path with Frodo and Gimli, passing the Rohan kids. 

“We win!” shouted Thete, as they reached their campsite. The kids, all a little out of breath, looked very proud of themselves as the Rohan group continued down the path at a walk. Borlas, who was walking next to Merry, stuck out his tongue at them. 

“We’ll get you for this,” he declared. 

“Now,” said Faramir, as the Minas Tirith group settled down on the benches around the fire pit, “we’re supposed to be having a ‘camp meeting’ to talk about boring stuff like rules, but I say we wait and do that later.”

“All in favor?” asked Pippin, raising his hand. 

The rest of the group quickly voted in favor of Faramir’s plan. 

“So,” said Tessa, “what are we doing instead?”

“Well, I was thinking, the Gondor kids will be having their camp meeting, so we could go and disrupt them. Perhaps with the use of water balloons.”

Mina, who’s older brother was at Gondor, smiled brightly. 

“I think that’s a fantastic idea.”

“Alright then,” said Faramir. “Pippin and I will get that set up. You all go and change into clothes that you’re ok with getting a little wet.”

The kids scattered, and Pippin helped Faramir drag out the tub of water balloons they’d dragged out to Minas Tirith that morning. 

“You didn’t tell them when we were planning on attacking, did you?” asked Pippin.

“All they know is sometime before the camp tour is supposed to start. Although…”

Two girls had already returned to the fire pit, now wearing sweatshirts over their outfits. 

“Eadis and Thene, would the two of you like to be our lookouts while we get ready?” asked Faramir. The girls nodded. 

“Alright,” said Pippin, leading them a little ways down the trail. “Thene, you sneak up as close to Gondor as you can, try and find a place where you can see their meeting. And Eadis, if you could get a little ways around their camp site, in case they try and sneak up on us from the back?” 

The two girls crept away. Pippin hid himself behind a tree, watching the entrance to Gondor. A few moments later, Aragorn, Eona, and a boy all walked out of Gondor. 

“Khilo, you go that way,” whispered Aragorn, pointing. “And Eona, you over there.” 

The kids followed his directions. Looking up, Aragorn winked at Pippin and then hid himself. Pippin stifled his laughter. There was a stretch of silence, and then someone tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around to find Nathalie and Mina. 

“We’re ready,” whispered Nathalie. Mina handed Pippin a water balloon. 

“You two go and give water balloons to Eadis and Thene, they’ll show you where Gondor’s scouts are. Get them first.”

The girls disappeared into the trees. Pippin slowly stepped out onto the path. He could see the other Minas Tirith kids waiting at the edge of the campsite. Suddenly, there was a shriek from one of the girls, and all the scouts came tumbling out of the woods, soaking wet. 

With a shout, both campsites came running down the path at each other. The fight had begun. 

“So if we all agree on a 8:45 lights out,” said Legolas, checking his watch, “then we’re all done with our meeting and we have about ten minutes of downtime before you all have to go on your tour.”

“Can we finish braiding your hair?” asked Háwyn. 

“Please?” added Flaila. Arwen smiled at Legolas across the fire pit. 

“Only if you can do it quickly. I’ve got to head over to the archery range before the other campsite gets there.” 

Háwyn and Flaila cheered. Arwen pulled out a deck of cards and started a game of BS with four of the campers, although she had the good sense to call it Peanut Butter instead. Ida, who was proving to be rather sneaky, suddenly called out in surprise. 

"Do you play guitar?” she asked, holding up the pick that Legolas had apparently dropped outside his and Arwen’s cabin. 

“We both do,” said Arwen, taking the pick back. 

“Can you play for us?”

“We’ll play for you after the tour, ok?” said Arwen. “Come join our game, we’re just starting a new round. 

“I don’t know how to play.”

“I can teach you!” said Lorro, happily. Ida sat down between Arwen and Lorro, taking her hand of cards. Arwen tossed Legolas’ pick back to him, and he tucked it into his pocket. 

_Thank you_ , he mouthed. She smiled. 

“All done!” announced Flaila. 

Legolas reached back and ran his hand over the braid. 

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “Now I need to get going, but I’ll see you all soon.”

Boromir was having a fantastic time hugging every single one of the councilors before they had the chance to realize that he was soaking wet. What was even more fantastic was that the Gondor kids were catching on, and group hugging every new councilor. 

“Why?” asked Aragorn, who had already fully dried off in the sun at the waterfront. 

“Camp site bonding!” declared Mina. 

Aragorn rolled his eyes. 

“Alright you all, my shirt is wet again, mission accomplished.”

The group scattered to sit on the wooden stairs that led down to the waterfront from the rest of camp. Aragorn, smiling despite his dripping shirt, began explaining the rules of the waterfront. 

“Why,” asked Galadriel, standing outside Lothlórien and watching all the groups head back to their sites, “is your entire group soaking wet?”

Boromir and Aragorn glanced at each other. 

“Camp site bonding,” they both said, at the same time. 

“Now then,” said Frodo, “since we’ve finished talking about camp site rules and all that, why don’t we discuss the annual prank war.”

The kids were suddenly listening much closer than they had been before. 

“As some of you might know, we’re up against the camp directors and the other campsites.”

“Especially Mirkwood,” added Gimli. 

Frodo smiled. 

“Any ideas?”

“That is so incredibly camp-councilor-y,” whispered Gimli.

The Fangorn group was crouched in the woods surrounding the Mirkwood campsite, armed with tape and lots of sticky notes. At the firepit, Legolas and Arwen were both playing their guitars, singing with the campers. Frodo hid his smile by checking the time. 

“Only a few minutes now, everyone get down!” he whisper-shouted. 

Right on cue, Merry, who was being paid in candy for his role in the chaos, came jogging up the path. 

“Hey, I hate to interrupt this concert, but Sam’s playing hide-and-seek with the kids at the Battle Plain, and we were wondering if you all wanted to come up and join us.”

“What do you guys think?” Arwen asked the group. 

Lorro and Ida led the group in a cheer. Arwen and Legolas carefully put their guitars away, and the Fangorn kids ducked low when they approached their cabin. After a moment of rushing about, the group left the site. Frodo watched them pass out of the woods and into the main camp before standing. 

“Alright Fangorn, let’s work fast so we can join in on the hide-and-seek game as well!” he called. 

“With luck,” said Gimli, “They won’t find out until tonight.”


End file.
